


Caught In Between

by VaderCat



Series: In Between [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Character Death, Romance, Slow Build, Torture, Underage Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-21 23:37:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 52,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11955099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VaderCat/pseuds/VaderCat
Summary: Jyn Erso is a genius, an expert hacker, software developer and computer programmer, working at a university. Everything falls apart when her childhood sweetheart, her first love, Cassian Andor, comes back into her life, throwing her world into chaos and darkness that had been chasing her since she was a little girl.Cassian Andor just wants to save the love of his life. But forces at play will deter him at every step causing him to make decisions that could hurt all those around him.Update: 12/29/17: Finally figured out how to make a playlist on Spotify so made one for this fic - enjoy!Caught In Between Playlist





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I suck at summaries. 
> 
> Please be gentle on reviews. Warning you now - SUPER ANGSTY. But you all know I'm a fan of happy endings. It will just take a while to get there. Most of this is already written - I'm about 80%ish done. I just get worried about overloading everyone with a lot of chapters all at once. 
> 
> Please forgive me for all the BS I made up on cyber security, weapons and action scenes.

“It’s time to extract her.”

Cassian looked up sharply, keeping the surprise out of his face. “Why now? It’s been six years and they haven’t done anything.”

Draven had a worried look on his face, something Cassian had never seen. The director always had that impassive I-don’t-give-a-shit face. Something was up.

“He sent it. The drop was supposed to be with our operative but he sent it. To her. And _they_ know.”

 _Fuck_.

Cassian kept his face smooth, body still, not wanting to betray the flood of emotions, the anxiety that he was feeling. “How much time do we have?”

“We don’t. You need to leave now. Take your extraction team. Who knows how many they sent? You’ve been keeping tabs, right? You know where she is right now, this very moment?”

He nodded his head, affirming. That had been one of his assignments the last six years. To know when, where and who she was with. All without her knowing. He glanced down at his watch. She would be on her way to work now, going to her night shift at the security center.

_Out of all the assignments he had - pretty shitty ones too, tracking her, watching her, knowing her every move was the worst. Knowing he had to stay in the dark, in the shadows and not be able to touch her, feel her._

He turned sharply to leave. He would finally see her after all these years. _He was lucky if she didn’t kill him at first sight._

 

* * *

   
Jyn was walking on her way to work, enjoying the crisp coolness of the air. Summer was almost over and the weather was cooling down at night time. She shivered a bit in her thin t-shirt. She should have brought a light sweater or a hoodie but had forgot in her rush to get to work.

It was her shift to work the evening hours at the computer center on campus. She worked in cyber security however all IT managers were required to do a shift every two weeks, working the helpdesk, just to keep their skills sharp. She rolled her eyes. _As if she needed it. She was the youngest and only female to have a leadership position in the IT division. And in Cyber no less._ Thankfully she didn’t have to sit in the main area with all the new student techs. Her boss, Saw, allowed her to work from her own office which was located on one of the top floors of the library.

She heard a noise, a branch breaking. Jyn looked up quickly, not seeing anybody around her. The campus was eerily quiet. School hadn’t started yet so it was pretty empty save for a few students finishing up summer school. There was something in the air tonight, as if someone was watching her, waiting. She shook her head. _Get it together Erso, you’re imagining things._ It had been a long time since she felt that way. Fear. Nearly 15 years. _Why now?_

She had to go through several security measures to access the cyber center. Key codes, magnetic strips, biometric scans. The works. When they remodeled the library to add the cyber center, the university didn’t waste any expense. Too many faculty, graduates did high-level research for federal agencies, every single alphabet bureaucratic agency that was out there, the university had a research grant with. FBI, DEA, CIA, DHS, etc. The cyber center worked to protect that research and data from being exposed, hacked. Jyn had led the charge in creating the system, ensuring it was protected. It was untouchable.

She walked into the office, picking up her mail that the receptionist left for her. There was a plain manilla envelope addressed to her with no return address. She opened up the envelope and a silver computer chip fell out, barely the size of a thumbnail. _Odd, she thought_. Normally the university offices used USBs or hard drives; and they were delivered through a chain of custody. She hadn’t seen anyone on campus use this kind of tech. She was about to plug the chip into a drive when her office phone started ringing. _Helpdesk support. Ugh._ She put the caller on hold and then put the chip in the safe. _I’ll take a look at it later._

She ended up working later than usual. The graveyard staff was running late and didn’t get there till close to 10:30pm. She looked out the window. The winds had picked up and tree branches were banging noisily against the window. Whoever had designed the structure to be all glass obviously hadn’t been thinking about the people that would be working inside the building.

She was walking out to the parking lot when she heard it again. Branches snapping. She noticed a few people walking around the campus when she left the library. She had been working at the university for three years now, she had always felt safe. But tonight felt different. There were a few people walking behind her. _Probably some students - last minute summer school enrollees_. She picked up her pace when she felt someone tug at her elbow, calling her name.

“Jyn.”

_Time stood still. That voice. The way he said her name. She hadn’t heard his voice in years. She was imagining it. Memories flashed in front of her - a sad boy with chocolate eyes. A young, gangly teenager that liked to go hiking with her and smiled at her like she was his world. A young man, the sadness in his eyes replaced by desire. Then with regret._

She slowly turned around, shock and surprise in her face.

Cassian. Her childhood sweetheart. Her high school love. The bastard who loved her, fucked her and left her without a word.

She punched him in the face.


	2. The Beginning of a Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little Jyn meets Little Cassian. Little Kes is lazy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't kill me . . . taking y'all back in time.

_Seventeen years ago . . ._

Cassian knocked politely on his neighbor’s door. Kerrick and Randi Dameron kept telling him that he could come in whenever he wanted but he still felt uncomfortable. He had been living next door for the past four years with a distant cousin. The Dameron’s had a son, Kes, that was Cassian’s age and they immediately became best friends. They spent their summers riding bikes in the forest, swimming in the frigid lake. Winters were spent sledding and playing in the snow. Time with the Dameron’s helped Cassian forget about his own past, a past he didn’t want to remember.

Kes’s mom Randi opened the door.

“Cassian! How many times have I said you don’t need to knock? You can come in anytime,” she scolded him, but with a smile on her face. She adored this little boy. She hated how those damn cousins of his neglected him. Poor little kid had to grow up so fast. She was glad him and Kes became friends, so he could see what a normal family was like. Poor baby.

He smiled shyly up at her. “I wanted to see if Kes wanted to go ride into town, go swimming.”

“Sure, honey, c’mon in,” opening up the door for him.

Cassian walked into the house, heading to the kitchen. Kes was always in the kitchen, eating or harassing his mom. He stopped short when he saw a little girl at the kitchen table, playing on a laptop. She had brown hair and startling emerald green eyes. She was showing Kes how to play a video game and was very badly kicking his butt judging by the scowl on his face.

Randi made introductions.

“Cass - this is my niece, Jyn. She’s going to be visiting us for a few weeks. She lives down in Southern California, near Los Angeles.”

Jyn peered over her laptop at him, not saying a word.

“Jyn, honey,” Randi chided, “it’s rude not to say hi.”

“Hi!” She said quickly, going back to her game.

“Kes . . . Cassian wanted to go ride bikes down to the lake. Why don’t you take Jyn with you?” Jyn looked up, finally acknowledging him, excited at the prospect of going bike riding.

Kes immediately stopped what he was doing. “Aww . . . mom. She probably doesn’t even know how to ride a bike and she’ll slow us down.”

Jyn promptly kicked him in the leg. “I can ride better than you,” she boasted.

Randi gave Kes a look that he knew better to contest. He looked down at the bruise forming on his leg, knowing he was beaten.

“All right then,” he sighed. “Go get your helmet and change.”

Jyn darted past Cassian, a tiny wisp of a thing, running up the stairs.

They rode their bikes down to the lake, Jyn grumpy because Cassian had beat her to the lake.

“Show off,” she said, irritated.

He shrugged his shoulders. _He was trying to hide the sweat beading on his forehead and his pounding heart rate. She was fast. It had taken all of his strength to beat her._

Kes had taken his time, lazily watching them ride. He had banked on Cassian being able to entertain Jyn. She had only been there two days and he was already exhausted. He was so glad he was an only child. 

Jyn promptly took off her shorts and t-shirt and ran down to the water and jumped in, not having a care in the world.

They were met with a howling scream.

Cassian glanced at Kes - who was calmly laying out their beach towels on the sand. “She know how cold the water is?” It was an alpine lake so pretty much the water was all melted snow.

Kes kept his eyes on Jyn, laughing to himself. “She had no idea . . . I may have forgot to tell her. ”

He shook his head, then decided to join Jyn in the water. Kes, after dipping his toe in the water, said it was still too early in the summer to go swimming and laid down, reading a comic book.

They stayed at the lake for a few hours. In their haste to get out of the house, nobody had packed a lunch. Cassian had a couple of dollars on him so he took Jyn to go buy an ice cream at the snack bar. Kes was still being lazy and was sleeping on his towel. He had the sneaky suspicion that he was pawning Jyn off of him, but he didn’t mind. He always wished he had younger siblings. _Yeah but if you did, where would they be now? Dead. Or you would have been separated._ He looked at Jyn, at her angular face and green eyes, the color changing to a bluish gray when the sunlight hit them. _Yeah, maybe it’s better I didn’t have a baby sister or brother. I would have lost them too._

Jyn studied Cassian deep in thought. She was an only child so being able to spend time at her aunt and uncles home was a treat for her. Kes was her favorite cousin - only cousin - but who was counting. Having Cassian around was an extra treat. It’s like she had two older brothers to play with. Plus Cassian didn’t seem like a pain in the ass like Kes was. He played with her. He seemed sad though, she thought. His smile didn’t quite reach his big brown eyes.

The two weeks Jyn spent with the Dameron’s were the best weeks of her life. She didn’t want to go home but her father had called and needed her to come home earlier than expected. Pouting, she said good-bye to Kes and Cassian.

Cassian punched her on the arm playfully. “We’ll see you next summer?” he asked. The little spitfire had grown on him the past two weeks. She tagged along wherever him and Kes went, hiking, climbing rocks, riding bikes.

Jyn nodded her head. “Next summer, Cassi.” She had given him a nickname that he didn’t like but far be it for him to tell her it sounded like a girl nickname.

She waved good-bye, all of them looking forward to what next summer would bring.

They didn’t see her till four years later. When they did, the spark had died in her eyes and the fire in her was slowly dying.

She wasn’t the same.


	3. Embers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn's life is turned upside down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief mention of child abuse. Just hang with me here. Notice Orson Krennic as a tag in this fic. He's a douche.

Jyn went back home, excited. She chatted non-stop about her trip, telling her mom and dad about all the adventures they had. She didn’t notice the quiet and tension in the air. Not until she stopped talking and saw the look on her papa’s face.

“Papa, what’s wrong?” Her mother sat there, eyes downcast, not looking at Jyn. Her parents had been fighting a lot before she left - mostly about her dad’s work. She thinks that’s why they sent her away, so they could talk things out.

“Jyn, honey,” her dad started out, bringing her to him. “I have to go.”

She was confused.

“Why? Where do you have to go?”

“I have to leave, honey. Work. I don’t know if I’ll be back.”

She drew back sharply as if he had slapped her. Jyn was a smart, intuitive, little girl. She caught the word _if._

“What do you mean, if?,” she cried.

Galen Erso was holding back the tears. He had to be strong for his little girl, his wife. He reached out to pat her head soothingly. “Honey,” he pleaded. “I . . . there’s a project I have to do. I don’t know how long it will take.”

“So you’re leaving me and mom for work? Quit, don’t do it. Find a new job.” Jyn was crying now, pleading with him.

The doorbell rang. Lyra went up to get it. It was her father’s boss, Orson Krennic. Jyn had never liked him before, She didn’t like how he patronized her, calling her child. Or how he looked at her mother.

She really hated him now.

Orson glanced at Jyn, grimacing when he saw her tears. He knew she would be a problem. Damn Galen and Lyra for having a child. Everything had been going smoothly until Lyra had to get knocked up.

“Galen, it’s time.”

Jyn clutched his shirt. “Papa, no don’t leave,” she cried. “Please!”

Galen reached into his pocket, giving Jyn a silver, heart-shaped locket. He swept up her hair, putting the necklace around her neck. Krennic looking on, irritated that his time was being wasted with this nonsense.

“Jyn,” Galen murmured into her ear, as he put the necklace on. “Remember, everything I do, I do to protect you. You’ll always be in my heart. And I yours,” he said, looking at the locket.

She looked down at the necklace, clutching the locket. She looked at him sadly, lips trembling and then ran to her room, crying her heart out.

Galen Erso left. He never saw his wife again. He didn’t see his daughter for seventeen years.

 

* * *

 

Jyn’s grief slowly turned to anger. A simmering anger that was ready to blow at any moment. But she held it in . . . waiting.

Her mother tried to comfort her but Jyn, in her eight-year old mind, blamed her for her papa leaving too. The anger finally reached a boiling point when nearly a year later Jyn came home from school to find Krennic there, sitting with her mother on the couch.

Although hating him for taking her papa away, Jyn’s eyes lit up when she saw Krennic.

“Where’s papa,” she said, excitedly, glancing around the living room, hoping to see him puttering around outside or in the kitchen.

Orson smiled at her, his teeth sharp, gleaming. “Oh Jyn, your dad, he’s far away. Still working. He’s not here.” He took pleasure in seeing the smile fall from her bratty face.

Lyra called to her. “Jyn honey, come here, there’s something I want to talk to you about.” Her mother looked worn, tired, as if she had no life left in her.

Jyn sat down next to her mother, purposely wedging herself between her mother and Krennic. She didn’t like how close he was sitting to her mother.

“Honey . . . you're father and I got a divorce months ago. He's not coming back . . .” She looked at Orson nervously, “ever.”

Jyn glared at Orson. “This is all your fault,” she accused, “He never would have left if it wasn't for you.”

He stared icily at Jyn not saying a word. “Lyra, care to enlighten your child?”

“Honey . . . be kind to Orson. He’s only trying to help. He’s . . .,” she swallowed, trying to brace herself for the explosion, “going to be around more. We’re going to get married.”

Jyn’s jaw dropped.

“YOU. HAVE. GOT. TO. BE. KIDDING. ME.”

“Jyn! Apologize now or go to your room,” her mother scolded her.

Jyn didn’t bother saying a word and went to her room. _How could this have happened? How could her life have gone from great to horrible in such little time?_

They moved out of her childhood home into Krennic’s home. It was larger, in a richer area of Los Angeles. It was cold, sterile, decorated in all white. Jyn hated it. She missed her friends, her teachers. She missed her aunt and uncle and cousin and that little boy next door with the chocolate brown eyes. She hated him for taking it all away. For taking them away.

 

* * *

 

Jyn figured out her mother was sick. She was paler than usual. Weak. Coughing. Jyn came home to a coughing attack one day and noticed blood on her mother’s sleeve from when she covered her mouth.

Cancer. And it was bad.

 _That was why she married Krennic - so he could take care of them, pay for the medical bills._ Jyn forgave her.

Jyn was always forgiving. She forgave her father for leaving. She forgave her mother for marrying such a jerk. But forgiveness was a tenuous string - delicate, paper-thin. And it could be broken.

 

Krennic had a temper. Anytime he had a bad day at work, he came home and took it out on Jyn or Lyra. The first time he shouted at her, Jyn shouted back, her mother staying quiet in the background. Effectively taking his side through her silence.

Jyn glared at her. “What is wrong with you?” she said, hurt in her green eyes.

Lyra just shook her head, hoping Jyn would never goad Krennic into one of his episodes.

Of course Jyn did.

It was a day when Krennic was actually being nice, had come home and brought desserts from some fancy bakery. Jyn was having trouble with a science problem which annoyed her because she was good at science, like top in her class good. Krennic offered to help her - _apparently he thought he was good at science but Jyn was better_ \- and when she pointed out the error, she literally didn’t know what hit her until she was on the floor, the kitchen chair thrown to the side from when his hand connected with her face. She remembered her mother weakly screaming and Krennic telling her to shut up and then he loomed over Jyn, who had huddled in the corner, holding her face. “Who’s the smart one now,” he had snarled at her.

She cried the first time he hit her. She cried for her papa. She cried for her mother who didn’t care. She cried for the disease invading her mother’s body that left both of them trapped, helpless to fight back.

Most of the time, Jyn could bypass Orson and stay under his radar. However she had a hard time keeping her mouth shut, from fighting back and that’s when he would go off, never seriously injuring her but hitting her hard enough to where she would bruise or limp. A slap in the face, a kick in the ribs. She never cried after that first time. She refused to give him the satisfaction of her being weak.

 

* * *

 

Lyra Erso died when Jyn was eleven. The funeral service was small. Only people from Orson’s work showed up, offering condolences. Jyn observed a thin man, nearly skeletal in nature, murmuring to Orson during the service. Jyn dreaded going back to his house. Now that her mother was dead, what was going to happen to her? He couldn’t threaten her anymore - holding her mother’s illness over her head, his money, his ability to pay for things. Jyn would rather live on the streets than stay another night in his house.

They drove back to the house in silence, Jyn looking out the window of the car, plotting her escape.  
She was kicking herself for never bothering to remember her aunts number. She wish she could call, beg her to pick her up.  For the first time in three years, Jyn prayed. Begging God to send someone to help her.

Jyn’s prayers were answered.

There were two cop cars, flashing their bright red and blue lights when they arrived at Krennic’s home. Another car was in the driveway, a sleek black town car. Jyn noticed the old man at the funeral - Tarkin was the name she had heard - was in the car and got out when they arrived. Krennic immediately got out of the car, going to the burly sheriff. The other sheriffs remained by the vehicle, poised, waiting for a response.

“What’s the meaning of this,” Krennic glared, demanding an answer from the sheriff.

“We have orders to remove a child from this home. She’s being placed with relatives.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Krennic scoffed. “I’m the only family she has.”

The sheriff looked down through his aviators at Krennic. “Are you related to her, by blood, sir?”

For once in his life, Krennic faltered. That damn Lyra refused to fill out the paperwork for him to legally adopt Jyn. Without Lyra’s appearance and signature in court, he couldn’t do it. He could see his plans for Jyn, to groom her, to turn her into a better weapon than her father, slowly disappearing.

“No, not by blood, but I’m her stepfather. She belongs with me.”

The sheriff looked at Jyn, who had slowly walked over to where the other law enforcement officers were, already taking a side. There was no way in hell he was leaving this little girl with this cold man.

“Sir, we have a protected court order. She has family that are her legal guardians now. You can contact a lawyer and fight this in court but as of now, she is no longer in your care.” He said this calmly, all the while, his hand was resting against his holster, ready to draw fire if need be.

“Who’s this family?” Krennic snarled, “Fine time for them to show up now.”

The sheriff looked at him, unblinking. “It’s confidential. Since she’s a minor, her record is sealed.”

Krennic went to argue when the skeletal man came up to his side, murmuring to him in a low voice.

“Leave the child, Orson. She’s eleven, what trouble can she cause us?”

(Little did he know.)

“C’mon honey,” the sheriff called over to Jyn, “let me help you pack your stuff. You’re going with family now.”

She walked quickly by Orson, smirking at him. _Look who won this round, you asshole._

Orson grabbed her arm and pretending to give her a hug, whispered in her ear, “This isn’t the last you’ve seen of me, Jyn. I’ll find you. You can bet on it.”

Jyn looked at him, the fire slowly coming back into her eyes and knew that someday he would. But this time, she would be ready.

By the time she had packed her bag, both Krennic and Tarkin had left. She looked over at the sheriff, smiling faintly. “Mister ?”

The normally gruff sheriff was undone by this little girl with big green eyes. He grinned at her. “You can call me Sheriff Baze. Baze Malbus.”

She smiled. She liked that name. Baze. It sounded pretty cool. “Where am I going, Sheriff Baze?”

“We’re taking you home, sweetheart. Grab a pillow and a blanket, it’s a long ride.”


	4. Coming Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dameron's have an unexpected guest. Cassian overhears a conversation not meant for him to hear. Jyn has trouble coping.

Randi Dameron was washing dishes when she saw the sheriff’s car come up to her house. Sirens silent but lights blazing. Her heart stopped for a moment thinking of the worst. But then she realized Kes was safely in his room and Kerrick was outside on the patio, smoking a cigar. Then she noticed the seal on the car, _Los Angeles County Sheriff._ A tall, burly sheriff got out of the car and went to the back, opening up the door. A small figure got out, wrapped in a blanket. Randi peered through the darkness. _What the hell was going on?_ Then the blanket came off of the figure and she saw green eyes shimmering in the darkness.

Jyn!

Randi yelled for Kerrick to come inside. Kes wondering what the commotion was all about, came downstairs.

Randi ran outside and Jyn met her halfway, throwing herself into her arms, trying not to cry. Randi looked at the sheriff, questions in her eyes.

“Maam, are you Randi Dameron?”

Randi nodded her head yes. The sheriff looked at Jyn to confirm. She still had her arms wrapped around Randi’s waist but she nodded her head.

The sheriff handed Randi an official envelope. She took out the papers. There was a letter in there. _She would read it later._ Then there was an official document. It was a court order, citing her and Kerrick as Jyn’s legal guardians upon the passing of her mother.

She gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. Lyra was dead? What the hell happened these last few years? She had so many questions but right now, her focus was on Jyn. The little girl was shaking with fear. She hugged her tighter. “Oh honey, I’m so sorry.”

Jyn looked up at her, the tears finally falling. “My momma. My momma. She’s gone.”

Randi continued to comfort her. “Shh, honey. It's okay. Your home now.”

Randi looked at the Sheriff, so many questions in her eyes. He motioned to Jyn and nodded his head, both silently agreeing to wait until she was asleep to talk.

Jyn had finally stopped crying and smiled weakly at Randi. Kerrick and Kes had come out surveying the scene waiting for the right time to approach her. When Kes finally saw Jyn look up he ran down the steps, picking her up in his arms and swinging her around.

“Shortcake! Long time no see! We missed you.” Jyn hugged Kes tight. She finally felt safe. 

“C’mon slugger, let’s get you settled in.”

Randi and Kerrick waited until Jyn was out of earshot then Randi asked the sheriff about Jyn.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I wish I knew more but all I know is that an attorney visited our office this morning with the court order and those other documents. It's an unusual situation. Usually these things take months to process and the child is waiting - usually at a foster home - for the courts to make a decision but this was all done, signed and sealed last week.”

Randi looked at Kerrick. “I didn't even know her mother was sick. We lost contact. When her father left - her mother just cut off communications. We didn't even know she remarried.”

“Her stepfather didn't want to keep her?” Randi couldn't understand how no one would not want Jyn. Her precious niece.

Baze snorted. His reply chilled Randi and Kerrick to the bone.

“Oh yeah he wanted her to stay. But . . . Jyn didn't want to. _Her decision to leave was made before she even knew she was coming here.”_

Kerrick stiffened. He didn't like what that implied. Not one bit.

Randi offered Baze a cup of coffee before he went back on the road. He had taken her stuff inside and was outside about to leave when he heard his name being called.

“Baze!”

It was Jyn.

She came flying down the steps throwing herself at him. “Thank you!” She said, hugging him tightly, sniffling. “Thank you for bringing me home.”

He gave Jyn his card. He had just met her but this little girl . . . he wanted her to be safe. Always.

“You call me if you ever need anything? Okay? Any boys give you trouble, I'll be here as fast as possible.”

She watched him drive off. _There are good people in this world, she thought._ She noticed a slight movement in the house next door, but didn't see anybody in the window. She hoped the boy with the brown eyes still lived there.

Cassian had been reading by his window when he saw the sheriff’s car pull up. He opened up his window to see what was going on and smiled when he saw Jyn. He had missed the little spitfire. But then he overheard them talking and saw the grief on Jyn's face. She had lost her mom. Like him. He would make sure to go over and visit tomorrow. She would definitely need a friend.

  
Randi and Kerrick were finally settling in for the night. Jyn was tucked in bed, sound asleep, clutching a teddy bear Kes had given her. She had affectionately named it Baze right away. Randi still had so many questions then remembered the letter that came with the court order. She went back downstairs to read it, hoping it could provide insight.

It did. But then it left Randi with more questions.

Randi wiped the tears from her eyes, folding the letter and putting it back in the envelope.

If it was the last thing she did, Lyra Erso saved her daughter with her last dying breath.

 

* * *

 

Randi didn’t know what to do. It had been a few weeks since Jyn came home. She was having nightmares. Was withdrawn. Quiet. Randi would find her tossing and turning in her bed, clutching the heart-shaped locket her father had given her. The spark she had in her eyes had dimmed. Sometimes she would see it flare up, especially if Kes got on her nerves. But then in her downtime, when she thought nobody was looking, Randi would see the grief and sadness ooze back in, clouding her sweet personality.

She had gently suggested to Jyn that maybe she needed to talk to someone, a priest, a counselor. Someone that could help her work through her mother’s death, her father leaving her. Both Randi and Kerrick kicked themselves for not trying harder to stay in touch. But once Galen had left them, Randi had no rights. Nothing. She didn’t even really have rights to begin with. Galen was her foster brother, both having grown up in the same foster home. She supposed that’s why she had such a soft spot for Cassian. She knew what it was like to be in the system and poor Cassian had been in foster care for three years before they finally found cousins to take him in. She sometimes wondered if he would have been better off with a foster family. His damn cousins could’ve cared less about him.

Randi was working on her laptop when she noticed Cassian and Kes walk in, coming home from school. It was close to the end of the school year and when she received Jyn’s transcripts from her school in LA, Randi chose to not enroll her until the Fall. The girl was brilliant. The principal at her former school had even suggested having her skip a grade but Randi and Kerrick both thought it would be better for her to be with people her own age.

“Hey ma, where’s Jyn?” Kes asked, rummaging through the fridge.

“She went down to the lake, said she wanted to go for a swim. Did you want to go meet her down there?” Cassian looked at Kes already putting together a heaping sandwich. Nobody should get between Kes and food.

“I’ll go get her,” he volunteered.

Randi turned to look, eyeing Kes already biting into his sandwich.

“Are you sure you don’t mind, Cass?”

He shook his head. He had been meaning to talk to Jyn anyways, now was the perfect time.

 

Cassian walked down to the lake and saw a small figure, cutting laps back and forth from the shore to a small dock that was the marker for swimmers not to go past. He sat down on the sand and watched her swim waiting patiently for her to finish up. Gone was the playful swimming where she used to float and twist around and do lazy backstrokes, often kicking and splashing water at Kes to annoy him.

This swim was as if her life depended on it. As if she was trying to swim out the demons, the hurt.

_He understood how she felt._

She finally got out of the water after an hour.

“Hey.” Cassian said, handing her a towel. “Randi wanted one of us to check on you.”

She smiled at him faintly, wrapping the towel around her and plopping down next to him on the sand.

They stayed like that for a while, neither one speaking. Cassian didn’t want to push. He remembered feeling like he was suffocating, like he couldn’t breathe when his parents died. When they were killed. He just wanted everyone around to shut up and just leave him alone. But it seemed like something else was bothering her.

He finally spoke, still looking at the gentle waves of the lake, the sun setting in the horizon.

“My parents . . . they died when I was six.”

Jyn finally turned to look at him, a flicker of emotion crossing her face. “Were they sick?”

He smiled sadly at her. He wasn’t too sure how to tell an eleven year old that his parents were murdered, killed in front of him. That people were cruel. That monsters existed. But he didn’t want to lie to her either.

“They were killed. My . . .dad was a policeman back home . . . in Mexico. One of his cases went bad . . .and he and my mom both were killed.”

Jyn knew what he wasn’t saying.

“You were there.” She said, flatly. She was mad. Angry that somebody took his parents away from him. From this boy with such a kind smile. He could see some of the fire coming back into her.

“ _Si._ Yes. My dad told me to hide and I did.” His lips started to tremble at the memory, of hiding under the bed and seeing his parents both fall, blood oozing out of their mouths. He was so ridden with fear that he didn’t move.

He stayed like that for hours, staring at them, long after the cartel’s henchmen had left. He must have fallen asleep because all he remembered next were sirens, and being taken in a police car to the precinct.

Nobody had wanted to take him in. All his aunts and uncles had refused, fearful that they would be next. His mother was from the US and had family in Nevada so he was shipped there, to live with distant relatives that cared more about the paycheck from the state than they did about him.

Jyn took a deep breath. She hadn’t talked much to Randi or Kerrick about her mama. She didn’t want to. To talk about it meant it was there, in the air, and that she would have to acknowledge it.

“My mama was sick . . . cancer. My papa . . .he left a couple of years ago and never came back.”

Cassian nodded his head, thinking. That explained why she never came back to visit.

Then Jyn did the unexpected. She turned to Cassian and patted his hand, as if to comfort him. “I’m sorry . . . Cassi. About your parents. And that you were alone.”

He looked at her and smiled. “I’m not alone anymore.”

He got up and held his hand out to help Jyn up. She bent down to grab her towel, wrapping it around her quickly.

But it was too late. He saw it. A big, yellow bruise on her back. He had been in enough scrapes and falls over the years to know that it was at least a month old - maybe two months. Well before she came back. Words came rushing back at him, words he overheard, hitting him with the force of a hurricane.

“ _Oh yeah he wanted her to stay. But . . . Jyn didn't want to. Her decision to leave was made before she even knew she was coming here.”_

The bruise resembled that of a man’s boot.

He felt like throwing up.

He looked at Jyn, wanting to cry. But when he saw her eyes, the unspoken plea begging him not to ask, to not bring that up in the open, he tamped down the guilt, the hurt he felt for her and schooled his face into a mask. He had to be strong for her.

He would help her get through this.

“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s go see if Kes left us any food.”

Jyn smiled, thinking of her cousin that loved to eat. “We’ll be lucky if he left us crumbs.”

 

Jyn slowly came out of her shell. All thanks to Cassian. The nightmares had eventually stopped. He found she loved being outdoors. Hiking, swimming, riding bikes. Anything to get her out of the house and her mind elsewhere. It was therapeutic for her, to be free, not having a care in the world and nature provided that to her. Kes had grumbled to Randi that he felt like a third wheel, that Cassian always wanted to hang out with Jyn but Randi understood the bond between the two. They had something in common. _Both had lost their parents._ Not one but two. Randi could never thank Cassian enough for bringing her little girl back, for getting that fire back in her.


	5. Only Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn is sixteen and Cassian notices that other boys are noticing her. Kes notices that Cassian notices that other boys are noticing her. A life altering decision is made.

_Four years later . . ._

There was a pillow on Kes’s face. Someone was trying to kill him, smother him. _Wait that wasn’t a pillow, it was furry, fluffy._

“Jyn,” he groaned. “Get your damn bear out of my face.”

He heard a giggle. It was music to his ears, hearing that laugh.

“C’mon Kes, you and Cass are supposed to take me to the lake for the senior send-off party.” She poked him in the ribs, earning her another muffled groan.

“What time is it?” He asked, his voice still groggy.

“8:00am. But if we get there later then there won’t be any good spots on the beach.”

“Ugh . . . fine. Get off me,” he complained, throwing a pillow at her. She darted nimbly out of the way, laughing back to her room.

Kes went downstairs and Jyn was sitting at the table, an expectant look on her face. She had already eaten breakfast and he noticed that she had already loaded up his truck with umbrellas, towels, ice chests, and whatever else that was needed for a day at the lake. He felt a little bit guilty that she did all the work loading the truck while he slept.

The guilt only lasted a minute because then Cassian popped his head inside, yelling at Kes to get a move on. _Knowing Cass, he probably helped her, Kes reasoned. He was a sucker whenever Jyn asked for anything_.

Jyn was glad they left early. There were a bunch of other people at the lake already, setting up camp for the day. She was so excited that Cass and Kes decided to take her. Both of them had just graduated and she wanted to join in on this last party to send them off. Of course, neither one of the fools had decided what they wanted to do after high school. Both had become pretty serious about the idea of the military which pained her to think about it. She’d much prefer they stay close to home, go to college, be safe. She felt bad for Cassian though. She knew his cousins would only let him live there for so much longer and college was so expensive. He was offered a few scholarships but not enough for him to go to school without taking out loans. Kes had the same issue but Kerrick and Randi had put money aside for him through the years so he wouldn’t have to take out loans. They had even offered to help Cassian out, too, with college but he had refused. 

As the boys set up their spot on the beach, she watched them, her thoughts drifting to Cassian. It was a warm day and he had taken his shirt off. Jyn was starting to notice things. Things she had no business noticing. Like the way his muscles shifted as he lifted the ice chest out of the truck. Or how his trunks fit him perfectly, barely hanging on his slim hips. He’d always been lean, almost skinny but those muscles just seemed to come out of nowhere.

 _Or maybe they were always there and she was just noticing_.

The two of them had grown so close over the years. He was there for her when she came back after her mother died. He never pushed, never made her talk about those years she was there with her. He just always made sure she had a shoulder to cry on or someone to talk to when she couldn’t push the nightmares away.

She loved him. He was her best friend. Her heart ached at the thought of him leaving. Of Kes leaving. She knew that they both had their whole life ahead of them but she just wanted to hold onto them forever. 

“Hey Jyn, you gonna help us out or what?” Kes called out irritably.

Jyn shook her head. _He was so lazy and he was bugging her?_ She went to help them lay out the blankets and set up the EZ up, then helped Cassian dig out an area for a bonfire later on. A few of their buddies came and started throwing a football around. Jyn, not much for physical sports, decided to take a swim and took off her shirt and shorts - she had her swimsuit on underneath. She bent down to put sunscreen on her legs and her arms, stretching out her arms before she went to jump in the lake.

The boys stopped playing football, except Kes, who had been running down the shore to catch a throw from Cassian.

Cassian about to throw the ball stopped short when her saw Jyn . . . in a bikini. The ball fell short, landing in the water.

_What the hell is she wearing?_

It was an emerald green bikini - not terribly revealing but still, it was a bikini. She looked . . . hot. She was still a shorty but she was all legs and hips. Toned legs.He noticed some of the guys playing football with them eyeing her as she bent down to put on sunscreen.

 _This needs to stop_. He walked quickly over to her, grabbing his t-shirt. She needed to cover up.

“Here,” he said, thrusting the shirt at her. “Put this on.”

Jyn looked at him, confused. “Uh . . . I’m about to go swimming, Cass. I’m not wearing that,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“Here,” she said, turning around, “can you take off my necklace? I don’t want to get it wet.”

He twitched uncomfortably at seeing her back. Pale, small little freckles that he had an urge to kis - - -

“Cass, my necklace?”

He quickly undid the clasp, his fingers burning as he touched her skin and handed her the necklace.

“Hang on to it for me,” she said, reaching to put the necklace in his pocket. “I don’t want to lose it.”

Cassian could barely breathe. He looked back at the guys - Merin, Tonc and Sefla. They were all seniors and were eyeing Jyn, as if noticing her for the first time.

He still held out the shirt. “Well wear it swimming then.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed at him. “I’ve never worn a t-shirt swimming and I’m not going to start now.” She turned and ran towards the pier executing a perfect dive in the water.

Cassian took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, then glared at the guys as they waited for Jyn to surface.

_They’re probably waiting to see if she lost her top, he thought grumpily._

Kes jogged back to the group. “Hey what the hell you guys? I had a good run and then you stopped playing.”

He turned to look at what was distracting them and saw Jyn, getting out of the water, taking another dive off the pier.

“Does she have to keep doing that,” muttered Cassian. “Just stay in the freaking water.”

Tonc let out a low wolf whistle. “Man . . . Kes . . . your cousin. Whew. I didn’t know she was rocking a body like that under her clothes. I would have taken her to prom . . .”

Kes grimaced. “First of all . . . Ewww . . . She’s my cousin. Second . . . She never would have gone to prom with you. Third -” he said, his face turning an ugly shade of mean, “you lay one finger on her and I’ll beat the shit out of you.”

Cass hissed at Kes. “Go tell Jyn to put something on. That . . . She’s too young to be wearing something like that.”

Kes eyed him carefully. He had never seen Cassian get so . . .flustered. And Kes being Kes, decided to milk it for all it was worth.

“She is sixteen you know, Cass. She can wear whatever she wants. Maybe she’s trying to impress somebody,” he said suggestively, nodding towards their friends.

Sefla chimed in. “I’ll take her out. That cool with you Kes?”

Kes glared at him.

Cassian glared at him.

Tonc chimed in. “Cass, aren’t you dating her? You two are always together.”

Cassian smoothed out his face, trying to act as if this conversation was not bothering him at all. “We’re just friends.”

“I don’t know Sef. You might have to check in with her bodyguard. Andor looks like he’s going to put a chastity belt on her.” Tonc continued egging him on.

Cassian pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t like them talking about Jyn like this. Not one bit.

Jyn came running up to them, oblivious to the staring. Looking amazing, her eyes sparkling and her hair dark brown, dripping wet. “You guys should go swimming. The water is great.”

Tonc and Sefla both took her up on her offer, racing her to the water. Kes grimaced. He loved the mountains and the lake but the water had always been too cold for him to ever enjoy it. He didn’t know how Cass and Jyn could swim in it like it was nothing.

Cassian looked at her, splashing in the water, laughing, having fun, the sun hitting her so that she just seemed to glow.

Kes eyed him. He knew Jyn and Cassian were close. The girl had been in love with him since she was eleven. But Cass had always played it cool, kept their relationship platonic. But then he never went out with anyone either, never dated. Kes wondered how much of that was because of Jyn. He wasn't too sure how he felt about it. The urge to be a protective asshole over Jyn with his other friends was natural but the thought of Jyn and Cass . . . It just seemed normal? _He was still too old for her, he thought. Almost three years. Yeah but you sure didn't mind the age difference when you took that freshman transfer student to homecoming. Kes shook his head. This was different. This was Jyn._

He nudged Cassian playfully.. “You should go out there, buddy. They’re having fun.” Cassian was about to shake his head no then noticed Tonc wrap his arms around Jyn and throw her in the water.

The look of pure irritation on Cassian’s face was priceless.

Cassian went and ran towards the water.

 

* * *

 

 

Jyn was sitting down on her towel, watching the sunset when Cassian came and sat down next to her. She loved this time of day on the lake - when the water was still, the waves softly lapping against the sand. Mostly everyone had left having gone to a party at Tonc’s house.

“You’re not going to the party?” she asked him.

He shook his head.

_I’d rather stay here with you, he thought._

“You didn't want to go?” He asked. “I don’t mind taking you.”

“Nah . . . Kes about threw a shit fit when they tried to give me a beer so he said I can’t go,” Jyn grumbled.

Cassian was glad he wasn’t around when that happened. He would have thrown a fit too. But Jyn didn’t need to know that. God forbid she come home drunk. Kerrick would hunt down every senior and arrest them.

“You want an ice cream? Snack bar is about to close in a couple of minutes.”

She smiled brightly at him. Ice cream cones had always been there thing, ever since she first came to the lake with him when she was a little girl. He was always buying her one.

“Sure, but I want it dipped in chocolate,” she demanded.

He came back handing her the cone. The weather had chilled when the sun went down so the ice cream hadn't started to melt yet. They sat there quietly watching the sunset, enjoying each other's company. They had always been like that. Comfortable around each other. Neither one feeling the need to talk. He noticed her shiver - her clothes had gotten wet from one of the many times Tonc threw her in the water and she was still in that damn bikini.

“Here . . . Put my shirt on,” he said, unbuttoning it and handing it to her. He had a plain white T-shirt on underneath so he was fine.

Jyn wrapped herself up in his shirt, discreetly inhaling its scent. It smelled like sunshine and pine trees. It smelled like Cassian.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling gratefully at him.

He noticed she had a smudge of chocolate on her face.

Without thinking, he cupped her chin, gently grazing his thumb over her lips to wipe it off.

Without thinking, Jyn leaned her face into his hand, her lips pressing gently into his palm.

Cassian’s eyes darkened, to molten chocolate, shaken at the intimacy of the moment.

“Jyn,” he whispered, lightly moving his hand from her face, tracing it down her neck to rest on her shoulder, his thumb running light circles over her skin.

She stayed still, gazing at him, her green eyes wide and innocent, not wanting him to break contact, wanting the moment to last.

“Cass,” she breathed, moving her hand to cup his cheek, angling her body closer to him.

_He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. She was his best friend. Her family trusted him. But here she was - so sweet, her eyes wanting, intense._

He bent his head down and brushed his lips against hers, lightly capturing her bottom lip before gently pulling away.

_She was too young._

He pressed his forehead against hers, quiet, emotions running rampant through his face.

“I know, Cassi,” she whispered. “I know.”

Kes had taken the truck to the party so they walked home, walking closer to each other than before. Their arms brushing against each other with every little step. He would stretch out his fingers, aching to hold her hand but then would pull back the minute their hands touched.

He shouldn’t have kissed her. _Bad idea_. Now he wanted more. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.

As they walked through the town, he noticed one of Kerrick’s deputies with a small boy. The boy was crying, obviously having been separated from his mom in the shops. The deputy knelt down and comforted the child, keeping him company until a young woman came running out of the store, panicking looking for him. There was something familiar about the scene.  
_Except in Cassian's case, no one came to pick him up._

When they arrived to her house, he turned to her, slowly reaching out to touch her arm.

“Jyn.”

She turned and looked at him, her eyes shining.

“I . . . shouldn't have kis--”

She cut him off. “Don't you dare say you're sorry, Cassian! I'm not.” Then she reached up on her toes and kissed him softly on the cheek lightly trailing her lips down to his chin before stepping away from him.

She gave him her smile. The one that made her eyes sparkle. The smile that was like the sun, lighting up his world.

Then she winked at him and sauntered in the house. .

He watched her walk away, watched the sway of her hips, his shirt coming to the top of her lean thighs. His throat tightened, swallowing thickly.

_Fuck he was a goner._

He walked back home, thrusting his hands in his pocket, feeling a wide gamut of emotions - frustration, desire, guilt, longing and then back to guilt. _She was almost three years younger than him. Sixteen. It was - ugh - his brain cringed at the thought. Borderline illegal the way he was feeling towards her._

He felt something in his pocket - her locket. He knew how much she treasured it. He always saw her with it on, sometimes twisting it when she was deep in thought. _I’ll give_ _it to her tomorrow, he thought._

Because if he went back to her tonight, who knows how many stupid things he would do.

He went to sleep with her locket clutched in his hand, dreaming of green eyes and her innocent smile.

Jyn slept, less than 200 yards away, with his shirt folded under her pillow.


	6. Can't Let Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They can't stay away from each other.

She was up at the crack of dawn. Her thoughts replayed memories from the day before - Cassian. She didn’t want to put too much stock into their brief kiss and the walk home, how their shoulders brushed up against each other, or their hands almost reaching out for each other. She knew how she felt for him. Cassian had always had a place in her heart. Ever since she was little. He was a comfort to her back then, almost like a security blanket. But as they grew up, she definitely had developed a crush on him. He had always kept everything platonic though so she never really knew how he felt until yesterday, when she saw the look in his eyes. Right before he kissed her. But then . . . he was going to apologize for it, and that she couldn’t deal with. She wasn’t sorry but he was. _Why? Why couldn’t they be together . . . like that?_

She got up, swinging her legs over the bed. She needed to go for a run, to think. Being outdoors was always cathartic for her, helped clear her mind. She put on her running clothes and went downstairs and outside just as Cassian was stepping outside his door, hiking clothes on, both with the same idea. Needing to be outside.

They both laughed when they saw each other. _Great minds think alike._

“Run?” he asked her.

“Yep, hike?” She queried him back.

He nodded his head. Then he reached into his pocket and handed her her locket.

“You forgot this yesterday,” he admonished.

“Hmmm . . . must of had my mind on other things,” she said, pointedly looking at him, putting the necklace back on her neck.  
  
He blushed . . . knowing exactly what she had her mind on. He swore to himself before he fell asleep that he was going to put some distance between them, slowly ease himself out of her life. She was too young for him - she needed to start dating boys her own age. The military was looking like more of an option. He needed to be away from her. For her own good.

Of course all those resolutions fell out the window the minute he saw her walk out of her house. The bounce in her step, her hair pulled back into a messy bun, tight running clothes on.

Instead of wishing her a good run, he could have slapped himself for what came out of his mouth next.

“Want to go hiking with me instead?”

Jyn grinned and his heart stopped. That smile - it was so bright and so full of life. “Of course,” she responded enthusiastically.

“Let me grab my bag and some snacks.” She ran inside and came out a couple of minutes later with her backpack. They had gone on hikes before so both always knew to what take. Pack for the unexpected and the expected.

The both walked quietly through the forest till they got to the juncture of several trailheads.

“Where do you want to go?” Cassian asked.

“Let’s go to Vista Rock. We haven’t done that one in awhile.” Jyn wanted to spend as much time as she could with him today. She opted for the longer hike, about six miles round trip but the view was breathtaking. Vista Rock was her favorite - the hike had a path but sometimes you had to climb rocks, jump over creeks and then end up back on the path. It ended with a bunch of flat rocks outlined by thick pines and the view of the lake was breathtaking.

“Good thing we packed snacks then . . .,” Cassian said, smiling warmly at her.

The trail was difficult in some areas. Sometimes Cassian would have to scramble up tree logs or rocks and then would reach his hand out to help pull Jyn over them.

Jyn didn’t really need the help but she took his hand anyways.

Other times the trail was narrow where he would let her lead, his eyes hooded as he watched her from behind.

Then there were times when the trail was just wide enough for them to walk side by side closely, arms brushing against each other.

By the time they got to the end of the trail, Cassian was one walking hormone and Jyn was burning to kiss him again.

She had brought a blanket that she laid out on one of the rocks, then unpacked the snacks and water. She sat down cross-legged, munching on a cookie, staring out at the water. Cassian folded himself down next to her, careful to keep space between them.

“When do you leave for your hacker camp?” he asked, remembering Kes had mentioned she would be gone for two weeks.

Jyn rolled her eyes. “Next week. And it’s not a hacker camp,” she protested. “It’s a computer forensics camp - very high level.”

“Hmm . . . you excited about going?”

_I was, she wanted to say, until yesterday._

“Uh . . . yeah, pretty excited. There’s going to be a lot of recruiters from major tech universities so it’ll be good to maybe . . . get noticed? The admissions is so competitive so any edge I can get.”

Cassian couldn’t believe she was already thinking of college and she was barely going into her sophomore year. Here he was, already graduated and he had no clue. The military was looking more and more promising. A recruiter from the Army had met with him after their senior advisor had them take those damn personality tests, told Cassian that he would be a good fit. He wished his path was as clear as Jyn’s. Ever since she was little, she was always into computers, often showing Kes how to play complex video games, setting up the computer network at her house. She had even created some kind of streaming device that she showed Kes how to access new movies and shows. She even had a job lined up once school started in the town’s cybrary.

They sat there for hours, munching on their snacks, enjoying the view when Jyn finally asked him the question she had been avoiding.

“Do you know what you plan on doing?” She asked so softly, hoping maybe that he didn’t hear it and wouldn’t answer.

He turned to look at her, his eyes softening as they took in her scared gaze. “I . . . college will be a bit hard . . . financially. So most likely I’ll enlist. I just . . I haven’t decided for sure yet.”

She turned away from him, a small gasp coming out of her mouth. She was trying hard not to blink, worried the tears would start coming out. _The military. Both him and Kes. She didn’t want them to go, to leave her. It was too dangerous. She heard the news, the bombings all over the world._

It was too late. A lone tear rolled down her cheek.

“Oh . . .Jyn.” He swiped the tear away with his thumb. “What's wrong?”

She shook her head, silent tears streaming down her face.

He wrapped his arm around her, bringing her closer to him. She laid her head down on his shoulder, sniffling.

“Sorry,” she said, embarrassed. “I . . . just with you and Kes both leaving, I’m scared.”

“Jyn,” he said, his voice smooth, “you’ll be fine without us. Look how far you’ve come. You have a job, you’re going to that little cyber terrorist camp of yours -”

She punched him for that one.

“You have your whole high school career ahead of you. You don’t need us.”

She looked at him, her face earnest. “Cass, I’m not scared for me. I’m scared for you guys. There’s so much going on in the world now, there’s terrorist threats, bombings, politicians making stupid decisions and not caring about the soldiers that fight. I don’t want Aunt Randi to get a phone call that Kes or you aren’t coming home.”

His heart melted at how concerned she was. He knew Kes’s parents saw him as another son but he didn’t have anyone else that cared. That cared so much about him . . . except for her.

He tried to reassure her. “Jyn, I’ll be fine. It’s only two years then I can come home, use the GI bill to pay for college. I’ll be back before you know it.”

She looked at him sadly, swallowing thickly, her eyes glistening.

“Jyn . . . I’ll be okay.” He grabbed her hand, trying to reassure her. “We’ll be okay.”

She buried her head in his neck and he caressed her hair, softly whispering words to her. He had switched to Spanish and she couldn’t make out what he was saying. She scooted closer to him, clutching his shirt, trying to get closer, trying to inhale him, knowing they only had so much time.

“Jyn,” he whispered, his lips close to her ear. She moved her face until her lips were close to his.

“We shouldn’t,” he protested. She felt so good, so warm, being this close to him.

“Why Cass? Why shouldn’t we?” she said softly. “This is it. This week then I’m gone and who knows when you’ll leave.”

A flash of panic crossed her eyes and she held him even tighter. “Promise me you won’t leave until I come back. Promise me.”

“I promise,” he growled out. Then his lips descended on hers. It was different than the kiss yesterday. He had held back yesterday. Yesterday he was gentle. This kiss was hard, urgent. As if both of them knew that time was not on their side. All his worries, the promises he made to himself to leave her alone, flew out the window when he kissed her. All he could think about was her, keeping her in his arms. She responded enthusiastically, opening her mouth when his tongue slid over her bottom lip, asking for entrance. She arched into him, cupping his face, slowly flicking her tongue over his teeth, his lips. He sprinkled kisses all over her face, her forehead, her nose, her cheeks, murmuring words to her in Spanish. _Mi Corazon, my heart, te quiero, I want you._ She lifted her face up, a soft moan escaping her lips as he nipped at her neck, slowly brushing his lips up to her ears. Warmth flooded her body, his kisses awakening senses in her she had never felt before. She returned the favor, burying her face in his neck, softly kissing him and nibbling on his ear, flicking her tongue on his earlobe. He shuddered at the contact. _Shit - how did she learn to make out like this? She was barely sixteen._

And there it was. Her age. He needed to be the adult.

He slowly pulled away from her, his face flushed, her cheeks tinged with pink. “Jyn,” he murmured, resting his forehead against hers. “What are we going to do?”

Her voice, came out muffled against his chest. “I don’t know, Cassi. I don’t know.”

The hike back home was quiet. Both lost in their own thoughts. But it was different. This time, when he would help her over the rocks and the trees, his hand would linger or he would kiss her on the cheek, or place a hand on her lower back. When they walked side by side, her hand would reach out shyly for his, and he would grab it, wrapping his fingers through hers. He just needed to be near her. When they got close to their homes, before they would be in sight, he drew her in for a lingering kiss.

Now that he knew what it was like, to feel her, to hold her, he hated to let her go.


	7. Different Paths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn goes to camp. Kes finds out about Jyn and Cassian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so a little bit of the plot begins to develop here. Loose plot. Very loose. Just roll with it.

“Jyn! Hurry up - we’re going to hit traffic down the hill if we don’t leave soon,” Kes yelled, tapping the horn on the truck impatiently.

“Okay, okay,” she yelled back, grabbing her backpack and luggage that was nearly half her size. She grabbed her laptop charger from the living room and ran out the door. Cassian was waiting patiently at the door, trying to placate an impatient Kes and a harried Jyn.

“Hold on honey, I packed some snacks for you for the trip,” Aunt Randi stopped her before she ran out the door, handing her a bag of chips, cookies and drinks. She hugged her tight, a frown on her pert face. This was the first time Jyn would be away from her since she first came back after her mother died. She would only be gone two weeks and Kerrick had done a thorough background check on all the faculty teaching at the camp, but still, this was her little girl. She recalled Lyra’s letter, the one that begged Randi and Kerrick to keep her safe.

“You be careful, okay? You stay on campus at all times.” Randi pleaded.

Kerrick chimed in. “Yeah, Jyn. No sneaking out to hang out with boys or anything,” he said gruffly, giving her a kiss on the top of her head.

Jyn glanced nervously at Cassian. His eyes opened wide briefly before his face smoothed out, hiding the anxiety. He and Jyn had done nothing but sneak out this past week - stolen moments where it was just them two and nobody else, walks to the lake, kisses in the moonlight. He hated this sneakiness but he had a feeling Kerrick wouldn't take too kindly to his son’s best friend’s romantic interludes with his sixteen year old niece.

“You ready?” Cassian asked Jyn. “I think Kes is about to leave without us..”

Jyn gave one last hug to Randi and Kerrick while Cassian loaded her luggage in the truck.

The drive was about four hours, at a major university in Silicon Valley. When Jyn’s high school counselor had told her about it, she could have gone to a camp in Los Angeles or in San Jose. She had nothing but bad memories of Southern California and opted to stay closer to home. She still remembered the brief look of panic on Randi’s face when she mentioned LA and how relieved she was when Jyn decided on San Jose.

Once they arrived, Jyn went straight to the registration tables, Kes and Cassian trailing behind, Kes glaring at any boy who dared to chance a look at Jyn. “Kes,” she hissed at him, “knock it off. You’re embarrassing me.”

Cassian had been quietly eyeing the boys. For lack of a better word, Jyn wasn’t your typical computer nerd and the boys were noticing that. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Why did she have to wear that outfit? She had on a pair of white shorts that were a little bit too short and a blue sleeveless blouse that made her eyes look blue instead of green. He chewed his lip, trying to avoid acting the same way as Kes. Also he noticed some of the kids didn’t look all that “nerdy.” He frowned. Some of the guys looked more like athletes and rebels than nerds.

“Jyn, I know what goes on at these things. It’s all serious when the teachers are around then the minute they disappear, the partying starts.”

She put her foot down, literally almost ready to start a tantrum. “Kes, trust goes both ways. Trust me that I’ll behave myself,” she said, not just for Kes’s benefit but for Cassian’s as well. “Kerrick wouldn’t have let me go if he didn’t think we would have constant chaperones.”

Kes shot Cassian a look, grumbling to himself. As if that stopped her before. He knew that something was going between those two. They were different around each other, ever since last week at the lake. They were too aware of each other - he noticed Jyn’s breathing would accelerate when Cassian was close to her. And Cass could hide whatever looks on his face, but he couldn’t hide his eyes. How they got brighter when she was near.

Once Jyn was done with registration tables, they got her settled into her dorm room. Kes was pleased when he noticed that it was girls only on one floor and boys on a different floor.

They helped her get settled into her dorm room. Jyn had been looking forward to going to this camp but with Cassian and Kes leaving two weeks after she came back, she dreaded being away for so long. She wanted to spend as much time as she could with him. He had been by her side since she was eleven - she couldn't even fathom going two days not seeing him let alone two years.

"Well . . . we're all done here," Kes said. "Anything else you need before we leave?" He was anxious, leaving her alone here, with strangers. He had fought tooth and nail for Randi to not let her go but she had calmly reasoned with Kes that it would be a good opportunity for her and that she couldn't be sheltered forever.

Jyn was digging around her backpack, trying to find her charger. "Kes, I think I left my charger in the car, can you go get it?" He rolled his eyes, walking out the room, leaving Cassian there with her.

Alone.

She counted to ten, looking out the window. Then turned into Cassian's arms.

"You did that on purpose," he murmured against her lips.

She looked at him, her eyes twinkling, mischievous.

"He's always around," she complained.

"I think he suspects something," Cass said, a worried look on his face.

"Stop talking. Kiss me. We only have a couple of minutes."

And that's how Kes found them, Jyn backed against the desk, her arms wrapped around Cassian's neck, both so into each other, they didn't even notice he had come back.

He cleared his throat. Loudly.

Cassian jumped back, a guilty look on his face.

"Well I guess I don't have to worry about you getting into trouble with other boys here," Kes said sarcastically, arms folded across his chest.

Jyn glared at him. Cassian was turning fifty shades of red.

“C'mon Cass, we better get going. Jyn - you and I are having a talk when you get back."

She opened her mouth to protest but his cutting look silenced her.

"How long?" Kes asked. They had been driving for little over an hour. Cassian knew it would be better to let him simmer down before he addressed what he saw.  
Cassian stayed quiet.

Kes persisted. "How long have you two been seeing each other? Behind my back."

"Two weeks," Cassian said quietly.

Kes did the math. "The day at the lake?"

He nodded his head.

Kes slammed his hand against the steering wheel. "I knew there was something going on with you that day. I've never seen you act that jealous before."

Cassian glared at him. "Tonc and Sefla weren't exactly making it easy."

"Why now, Cass? You two have been inseparable for five years. You're going to break her heart when you leave."

Cassian had had enough. "Why do you think I'm leaving, Kes? Don't you think I know how wrong it is? She's sixteen for crying out loud. She has her whole life ahead of her! And here I am, without a home, I can't go to college. What is there for us? Nothing. She's better off if I leave."

Kes looked at him sadly. "Cass, you know you always have a home with us."

"Yeah, until your dad finds out that I've been dating his underage niece," Cassian said, snarkily.

"Cass . . . you know that's not true." He glanced at him quickly, trying to keep his eyes on the road. "You don't see it, do you?"

"See what?" He grumbled.

"My parents adore you. My mom has always had a soft spot for you. Why do you think I always blamed shit on you when I got in trouble? Because my mom could never be mad at you."

He paused, then continued.

"When Jyn came back . . . she was broken. Not the same little girl. But it was you, Cass, that healed her. You don't think I heard her, waking up from her nightmares? You were the only one that could bring her back. Who knows what happened those years she was gone. I pray that I never find out."

(Kes's prayers won't be answered.)

"But it was you that saved her. My mom and dad they will always be grateful to you for that."

Cassian stayed quiet. He never realized that Randi and Kerrick thought of him that way, how he had helped Jyn.

"Cass, tell me. Is Jyn the only reason why you're going into the military?"

He sighed, running his hand through his hair. "To be honest, it was at first. I knew . . . I knew that what I felt, I shouldn't be feeling. She's too young. But . . . I . . . want to make a difference. Do something. Help people. Maybe go into law enforcement," he said, his mind flashing back to the deputy helping the lost boy the week before. The policeman that had found him, had been so kind, gentle. It was a fucking blood bath and Cassian remembers his soft words, trying to soothe his six-year old crying self. He wanted to do that, protect the innocent from all the bad that was out there.

Kes interrupted his thoughts. "Good. Because if you left just because of her, that would be worse for her."

He nodded, understanding. "Oh and if you ever and I mean ever, make her cry, I will beat the shit out of you."

Cassian nodded his head. "Understood."

"And no sex until she's thirty.

Cassian went from normal coloring to red in five seconds flat. "Jesus Christ Kes! We're not even . . . I'm . . . no. It's not like that."

Kes had a feeling that eventually it would be like that.

 

* * *

  
Jyn put Kes at the back of her mind. She doubted he would do anything. She felt bad for Cassian - she could imagine the four hour drive home wasn't going to be pleasant. Worst case scenario is he would tell Randi and then Randi would tell him not to say anything to Kerrick. If Kes was overprotective, then Kerrick was downright papa bear. Pretty much having Kerrick as the looming threat is what gave Kes his ammunition over the years in boys not even wanting to talk to Jyn.

  
Not like Jyn would have talked to them anyways.

She went down to the main conference area so they could check her laptop and make sure it was secure. Technicians from major tech firms were on hand volunteering for this event. The guy examined her laptop noting her encryption software.

"Where'd you get this from? I've never seen anything of the sort. Pretty genius using old tech to encrypt. The newer programs these days wouldn't even recognize it.”

Jyn preened. "I developed it myself."

She vaguely recalled a brief memory, sitting on her papa's lap as he showed her how to use the computer. It was the first time he showed her how to program, how the zeros and ones could make the computer complete a function. Every day he would show her something new. She worked furiously on the computer, determined to make him proud. One day when he couldn't log in and asked Jyn what she did and she showed him. He was amazed at how fast she had learned to encrypt, protect the computer.  
"Jyn, honey, always be careful. Technology can be a dangerous tool. You must always have everyone's best interests in mind when using it, developing it."

She was about to leave the main area when the same tech called out to her. "Hey we need your parent info for the progress report," he said, handing her an iPad to enter it in.

That brief flashback had Jyn thinking of her dad, an ache she hadn't felt in years. She absentmindedly entered his name on the iPad then realized what she did, deleted it and put in Kerrick and Randi's info.

Little did she know there was a keylogger system tracking every single entry.

The rest of the week went smoothly. The other purpose of the camp was to teach leadership skills along with computer forensics. You could have a genius technician that could hack the most locked down system but being able to report that to people unfamiliar with their world was difficult. Jyn was already outgoing, a natural born leader so it wasn't too long before the faculty teaching the camp started noticing her brightness.

It was towards the end of the camp when Jyn was working on her final project that she was approached by one of the faculty, Saw Gutierrez. He was dark skinned, had a shaved head and was well known in the tech community for cyber security. The man was a genius but paranoid. He was a professor at MIT and often consulted for the Department of Defense. Rumor was that he was also a spy for the CIA but Jyn laughed when she heard that. _Who would want to be a spy?_

"Ms. Dameron," he said, "I hope I'm not intruding."

Jyn looked at him, smiling, her green eyes sparkling.

_She looks so much like her parents, he thought._

"Your work here has been pretty impressive. Have you thought of which universities you want to attend?"

Jyn was shocked. MIT was a dream for her. But she couldn't expect Kerrick or Randi to pay for tuition.

"Most likely a state school - I live close to Lake Tahoe so probably Sac State or University of Reno."

He nodded his head. Obviously Randi hadn't talked to her yet. It wasn't his place . . . yet . . . to say anything. "You should think about MIT. They have very lucrative financial aid packages. Especially for high-performing students."

He handed her his business card. "Use me as a reference when applying."

Jyn took his card, eying it.

"What field of study do you want to go into?"

"Social programming" she promptly replied.

She was just like her dad, Saw thought sadly. Always trying to do things to help people. Little did she know that it could be used as a tool against her. Her compassion.

"You should think about cyber security. I've been trying to look at your project all week and haven't been able to get in."

Jyn's eyes widened. She wanted her project to be a surprise and hadn't purposely tried to lock the faculty out.

"I'm so sorry - I didn't know it was supposed to be open. I can decr - -," she tried apologizing.

Saw cut her off. "It's okay. Most of the kids here just want to program idiotic games like Minecraft. I look forward to your presentation."

He walked away, leaving Jyn flustered but excited about her new opportunities.

Jyn's presentation was risky. She had built a small disc and left it outside all week to absorb the weather elements. However she had to shut down all the electrical in the auditorium to demonstrate its capacity. Which would require her to hack. _Good thing Kerrick is a sheriff and can bail me out of jail, she thought._

She went up to the front of the auditorium and connected her laptop. Then she warned the audience that the electricity would shut off. A few faculty exchanged glances. It wouldn't be the first time someone had hacked into the system. They left it pretty open so the students wouldn't get into too much trouble or try to brute attack the system.

What they faculty didn't expect was for the whole building to go down then come back up five seconds later when Jyn plugged her disc into her laptop and connected to the the electrical panels.

The faculty checked their laptops. According to the university's power grid, the building was still off line.

Jyn's disc was powering the building. Electricity, air conditioning, everything. Offline.

 _Impossible thought Saw_. He checked the logs. Indeed, the power for the building was coming straight from her laptop.

Jesus Christ. This kind of tech would put Jyn at the forefront of any college recruiter, tech company. People with bad intentions. He vaguely entertained the notion of taking her now. Kerrick and Randi wouldn't be able to protect her. But she was only sixteen. He looked at her shining face as she explained how she coded the disc to absorb the rays from the sun, the breeze from the wind and the light from the moon to power it. Right now tech firms were only focused on solar. They hadn’t thought of other ways to harness energy, the wind, the moon which controlled the waves of the ocean.

_She was an innocent in all this, he thought. Let her hold on to that for a couple of years._

Saw found Jyn after all the presentations. She was waiting for Kerrick and Randi to pick her up. _Might as well make himself known now. He wasn't too sure how much Lyra had told Randi but it was about time to let them know that Jyn couldn't be theirs forever._

"I hope you plan on putting a patent on that," he told Jyn.

She grinned at him. "I already did. My high school counselor helped me fill out the paperwork."

"Smart child. What do you plan on doing with it?"

She wrinkled her nose. There were still a few kinks to work out. When she tried it on Kerrick's car, she blew a spark plug. Then when she tried it on Cassian's snow plow, it had exploded. She was just grateful that it worked this time without anything blowing up.

"I still have to iron out a few vulnerabilities. Maybe when I go to MIT you can help me decide," she said, winking at him.

She got a text on her phone. Kerrick and Randi were supposed to pick her up but Kerrick got called in unexpectedly. Kes and Cassian were on their way but were running a few minutes behind.

"Your parents coming to get you?" Saw asked. He looked around - most of the kids had been picked up. Randi shouldn't be leaving her alone like this.

"Uh yeah, my cousin and his friend are on their way."

Saw waited with her until she was picked up.

Right away Kes eyed him up and down and deemed him safe. Little did Kes know Saw was doing the same thing.

Jyn made the introductions. "Dr. Gutierrez - this is my cousin, Kes." She nodded to Cassian. "His friend," my boyfriend, she thought, with moon eyes, "Cassian."

Saw noticed the look she gave Cassian. Interesting. He already knew about both boys and their plans to go in the military. Their test scores were amazing. Both had different strengths they would bring to the table.

"You guys, this is Dr. Gutierrez. He's a professor at MIT. He was one of the faculty here for the camp."

Kes shook his hand, Cassian doing the same. "Nice to meet you sir."

Strong, firm handshakes on both boys. _They'll make good soldiers, Saw thought._

Cassian helped her grab her luggage from her room while Kes stayed by the car. "Don't want to interrupt anything," he had grumbled.

As soon as they got to her room, Cassian hugged her tight. He had missed her the past two weeks. Jyn clutched his shirt breathing him in. They didn't need to say anything to each other. They just both knew they didn't have much time left.

"How was Kes after you dropped me off?" Jyn asked hesitantly. Cassian flinched briefly recalling Kes's mandates. She didn't need to know that.

"Fine. He yelled at me for a bit but pretty much accepted it."

Jyn glanced at him nervously. "Did he . . . tell Kerrick?"

He shook his head. "No but he did say be prepared for blackmail."

She scrunched her nose. Damn. He was going to milk it. She didn't think she'd be glad to see Kes go off to the military but being blackmailed all summer long by him would not be fun. "Good thing you two are leaving in two weeks then," she joked, her voice shaky.

A shadow crossed Cassian's face.

"Jyn, there's something I need to tell you," he said quietly. "They changed when we report in. They wanted us to report today but we were able to convince them next week."

Jyn's heart sank. She only had a week left with him.

 

The night before they left, after Kerrick and Randi had gone to bed, Cassian texted her.

 _"You want to go for a walk?_ "

She replied back instantly. _"Of course."_

They hadn't been able to spend much time alone the past week. She had hoped to go out with him Friday night but Randi had made dinner, having a goodbye party for them.

She slipped outside quietly, not wanting to wake them up.

They walked to the the lake. He had brought a blanket for them to sit on and immediately wrapped his arm around her. She snuggled into him, sighing. He rested his chin on her head, inhaling the smell of her.

"There's something I wanted to give you," he said, pulling a small box out of his pocket. He opened it up and inside was a silver sun charm with a green stone in the shape of a star.

He ducked his head down, shy. "I thought you could add it to the heart you have. You've always been like the sun to me, Jyn. Giving me light."

Jyn was overwhelmed. "I love it, Cassi." She turned away from him. "Can you undo my necklace so I can put it on?"

The minute his fingertips brushed against her skin, she tensed. He lifted her hair up, while she undid the necklace. He leaned in over her shoulder to put the charm on then slowly put the necklace back on.

He kissed the back of her neck, his lips mapping a path from her neck to her shoulders. She turned into his arms and they kissed each other softly.

"Cass," she murmured. "I'm going to miss you," she breathed.

"I know, Jyn. I'm going to miss you too."

They both sat there on the lake, wanting to say so much more but just held each other all night long, watching the sun rise.


	8. Forgiveness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kes comes home.

_Two years later_

  
Jyn was getting ready for the high school football game when she heard the front door open and a familiar, deep voice called out “Helloooo . . .”

Kes.

She ran down the stairs and tackled him, hugging him. “You’re back,” Jyn exclaimed. “We didn’t think you’d be back until Christmas time.”

Kes hugged her tightly. He had missed her, his family so much. It felt good to be home. To be safe. “Hey slugger,” he said, checking her out. “Looks like you haven’t grown much.”

Randi and Kerrick came into the living room. “My son!” Randi cried out. “Oh we’ve missed you,” she said, tears running down her face. Kerrick went up to Kes and gave him a big bear hug until Kes couldn’t breathe.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were coming in? We would have picked you up from the airport son.”

Kes smiled sheepishly. “I wanted to surprise you guys.”

He glanced over at Jyn - it looked she was going out. He frowned at her outfit. _Her jeans are too tight. She needs to put something baggy on. Like sweatpants. And a hoodie._

“You have a hot date?” he asked, joking with her.

The sparkle in Jyn’s eyes dimmed slightly. She hadn’t dated anyone since _he_ left. Sure, there were boys that asked her out and a few had been hinting at asking her to homecoming but they weren’t him. “No . . . just going to the game.” She wanted to ask about Cassian. Him and Kes had gone into the military at the same time, Cass should be home too.

Thankfully Randi asked before she had to embarrass herself.

“Kes, honey, where’s Cassian? I thought you two were coming together.”

The room got quiet.

He glanced at Jyn, chewing on his lip.

“Cass . . . uh . . . he got another assignment. I’m not too sure when he’ll be back. Maybe next year? He wasn’t too clear on how long he’d be gone.”

Randi and Kerrick both looked at Jyn sadly. They knew she harbored a crush on him but had hoped she would see other boys, not tie herself down, but just start dating, see what was out there.

Jyn’s voice was small. He didn’t want to come home. To her. “He got assigned? Or volunteered?”

“Jyn . . .honey,” Randi tried to comfort her.

Kes in all his years had never lied to Jyn but he tried to cushion the truth. “He . . . was asked to stay on a few more months and he agreed.”

Jyn nodded slowly, her eyes clear. The tears were threatening to spill but she turned and went back up the stairs, promising herself to never cry over Cassian Andor ever again.

Kes took Jyn to the football game. The town they lived in loved high school football. He saw old friends, teachers, that came to cheer on the team. He also saw all the stupid dumbasses that were trying to hit on Jyn. In front of him, her big cousin, no less.

“Please tell me you’re not considering dating one of these fools,” he muttered to Jyn after scaring off the fifth kid in a row.

Jyn had been quiet the whole time, staring at the game but not really watching it. “I wasn’t but maybe I should,” she said, faintly.

Kes threw his arm around her. “Look kid. You’re in your senior year. Have fun. Go to homecoming, go to parties . . . I’ll even teach ya how to sneak around mom and dad. Don’t worry about boys until college,” he said, eyeing her. She was growing up so fast, turning into a beautiful young woman.

“On second thought, no boys in college either. Not until you’re thirty.”

She elbowed him in the stomach. “I am most certainly not waiting until I’m thirty Kes Dameron.”

Kes sucked in a breath. Ouch. Little spitfire was strong. When did that happen?

 

Kes settled back into civilian life pretty quickly. He enrolled in classes at the community college and had found a job as a personal trainer at the local gym. He noticed more boys coming around for Jyn. Looked like she took his advice and was going out, having fun. _Good for her, he thought._ She needs normal. Not the hot mess that was Cassian Andor. The two of them went through basic training together but when Kes was assigned to soldier duties, Cass was pulled out to do intelligence training, whatever the hell that meant. All he knew is that they would see each other on base every now and then and the smile that used to be in Cassian’s eyes faded every time he saw him. Like he was no longer in the sun, but in darkness. Kes had hoped Cassian would have returned home with him. He needed family around him. But when Cass had volunteered for that last assignment, Kes couldn’t stop him. He didn’t know why he was so afraid to come home.

 

It was snowing the day Cassian Andor came home. His cousins had upped and moved so he had messaged Kes to see if he could stay there for a couple of days until he got a small apartment in town.

Randi looked up from the soup she had been stirring when the doorbell rang. At first she thought it was Jyn, that she forgot her keys. She had left earlier with the quarterback she had been dating. Or was it the basketball player? Or the wrestler? _Yeah . . . that's right - it was the wrestler._ For Jyn being so studious and so smart, she seemed to like the athletes. Randi shook her head. That girl. She was just glad she wasn’t moping around anymore. Randi had started to worry when it didn’t seem Jyn was getting over Cassian. He hadn’t stayed in touch much over the years. A few phone calls at the very beginning but then pretty much just a card at Christmas time. But when Kes came home and broke the news that Cassian wasn’t coming back, she saw the look of resolve on Jyn's face and knew she wouldn’t pine  over him anymore.

Wiping her hands on her jeans, Randi went to open the door.

Her second son was standing in the doorway, hair falling over his eyes, hesitantly smiling.

_Guess I won’t be seeing much of the wrestler anymore, Randi thought._

“Cassian!” She said, pulling him inside, hugging him tight. “Where have you been, stranger? We missed you!” She pulled back to study him. He looked so much older now, taller. Gone was the boy with the bright smile and wide eyes. The young man that looked back at her was more serious, the cute boyishness gone, replaced by a handsome soldier, a military man.

Cassian returned the embrace. _Oh how he had missed this family._ Kerrick and Kes had come in from the garage, tinkering on the car. Kes whooped and Kerrick wrapped Cassian up in a bear hug. “I didn’t think you’d be here for a couple of days.”

He shrugged. “My assignment ended earlier than I thought.” _Meaning he had located the target and put a bullet in his head three days ahead of schedule._

“Ma - I told Cass he could stay here for a few days until he found an apartment. Is that okay?”

Randi grimaced before she turned around and smiled at her boys. _Jyn was going to have a fit._

“Of course, Cassian, you can stay as long as you want,” she said. Kerrick brushed past her, whispering, “I think we need to leave before the house explodes, yeah?”

Randi grabbed her purse, grabbed Kerrick and made an excuse about going to the store.

 

Cassian took his stuff up to Kes’s room. He still had his bunk bed from his teenage years so he figured it would be easier to sleep on the bed than on the couch. He glanced towards Jyn’s room, wondering if she was in there. The whole time traveling home all he could think about was her. He wondered what she looked like? If she was still short? If her eyes burned green fire when she was mad but then would turn grey or blue when she was happy.

Kes saw him look at Jyn’s room. “She’s not here,” he said, reading his thoughts. “Went out.”

“Jyn went out? She was never the ‘out’ type.” Cassian remarked, remembering the short brunette that preferred to stay home on a Saturday night and fix her parent’s network problems.

Kes looked away quickly, not quite meeting Cassian’s gaze. “A lot has changed since we’ve been gone,” he said quietly.

Cassian pushed. “Who’d she go out with?” He could tell Kes was being evasive.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know . . . friends.”

“Kes . . . “

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. She’s on a date.”

Cassian stilled, his face neutral, not betraying the storm of emotions he was feeling inside. _What’d you expect, Andor? That she would wait for you? Even when you promised to keep in touch and never did? When you said you would come home and you didn’t._

“Oh . . . well good for her.”

Kes fell on his bed. _Oh good lord, here we go again._

Kes sat up, suddenly feeling up to mischief. “C’mon. Let’s go find them and beat him up.”

“That is definitely not a good idea.”

“Well let’s go find her anyways. I’d rather she know you’re here now than find you in the bathroom in the middle of the night.”

Cassian sighed. He forgot how much trouble Kes liked to stir up.

“Fine,” he said, giving in. “Just don’t start any trouble.”

 

Kes tracked Jyn to a local pizza joint that had pool tables and video games. They had made a deal a couple of months ago that Kes would stop being overprotective as long as Jyn allowed him to track her on his phone.

_Some date, Cassian thought. He would have taken her to a nice restaurant with a view of the lake, candlelit dinner. Then would have taken her on a scenic walk and right when they got to the summit, he would lean in and kis - - -_

“Some date, huh?” Kes snorted, interrupting Cassian’s wayward thoughts. “What a cheap ass.”

They walked in expecting to find them eating a pizza over a chipped wooden table. What Cassian wasn’t expecting to see was Jyn leaning over a pool table, tight as fuck jeans on, pool cue in her delicate hands, lining up to take a shot on the 8-ball with perfect, flawless expertise. She landed the shot and turned to an older guy -

“I thought she was dating high school boys,” Cassian muttered, not taking his eyes off of her.

\- then he saw the older guy begrudgingly hand her a fifty dollar bill.

Kes’s eyes were wide. His little cousin was a pool shark. He rubbed his hands gleefully. He was so going to blackmail her.

“She is. That’s him in the corner,” he absentmindedly nodded towards a muscular, blonde haired boy, slouched in the corner, a scowl on his face.

Cassian eyed him up and down. _Not a bad looking kid. She could do better, though. Like him._ He shook his head. He needed to stop thinking that way. He had been fine these past few years but being back in her presence for less than a minute and he was reverting back to that nineteen year old boy that had to leave because he couldn’t handle a crush on a sixteen year old girl. He looked at her though. She certainly wasn’t sixteen anymore. Those jeans! Christ! Her butt. Her sweater had ridden up as she leaned over the pool table, showing pale skin begging to be touched, kissed.

He followed Kes as he wound his way to the pool table.

“Hi cousin,” Kes said, a bit too cheerfully.

Jyn stilled. _Shit. Kes._

Maybe she could bribe him with half her winnings.

Turning around, with the sweetest, most angelic smile on her normally mischievous face, this is how Cassian saw her for the first time in almost three years. Light. Sunshine.

She didn't see him at first, only focusing on Kes and trying to figure out a good excuse to explain her pool sharking ways.

Then her eyes drifted past Kes to the man behind him. _Cassian_. She hadn't seen him since he left nearly three years ago. He had texted her a couple of times after he left and then once he was deployed, she never heard from him. Only Kes had given her updates and even those were pretty vague.

He looked . . . good. His hair was longer, his jaw had a five o'clock shadow which gave him a bit of an edge but he was fuller, a bit more muscular. She had been so mad at him for not coming home sooner and not keeping in touch but the minute she saw him, his chocolate brown eyes and his hesitant smile, all her anger melted away. He was here. He was safe.

Jyn had always been a forgiving person.

"Cassian," she shouted, jumping away from the pool table and running to give him a hug.

"Jyn," he exclaimed. He saw the range of emotions that crossed her face. Irritation, anger. What he wasn't expecting was her final look. _Forgiveness_.

 _I don't deserve it, he thought, a_  dark shadow crossing his face. But as he felt her pressed up against him, her body warm, he breathed her in and all he could think was that he was finally home.

Jyn's date, the blonde haired boy, was about to interrupt their embrace. "Hey," he said, trying to grab Cassian's shoulder. Kes gave him a dirty look. "You can leave. Now." He was about to protest but then saw the glare in Kes's eyes and backed off.

"I'll see you next week at school, Jyn," he mumbled. Then he slouched away..

She wasn't even paying attention, still wrapped in Cassian's embrace.

"All right you two, cut it out," Kes grumbled. "I'm feeling like a third wheel."

Cassian flushed, pulling away from her.

Kes found a table for them to sit at and ordered a pizza leaving Jyn and Cassian to themselves. Jyn stared at him, eying him up and down. He looked the same but he seemed different. His eyes weren't as warm as they used to be, replaced with alertness or a keen sense of observation. She noticed he looked around the pizza parlor as if looking for someone, something.  
She shook her head. _You're being silly. You just haven't seen him in forever, she thought._

Cassian was quietly looking around the pizza parlor, taking note of the exits, of the people. It was mostly high school kids, a few older ones drinking beer at the bar and then Jyn's little pool friend, scowling because he lost money. He noticed Kes doing the same thing while he was at the bar, ordering. _You could take them out of the military but you couldn't take the training away._

"I thought you would've been home sooner." Jyn's quiet voice interrupted his thoughts.

He looked away guiltily.

He should have kept in touch with her, stayed in contact but it was too hard. After basic training, they had assigned him and Kes to different units. Kes going into front line duties and Cassian to intelligence. Apparently Kes was quick to think on his feet, could assess a situation and aim for the best outcome using brute strength. Cassian, could do that too, but was more strategic, looked for sly ways in and sly ways out. The military quickly noticed that and drafted him to Intelligence. He was also good with a gun. After his first assignment, he knew he couldn't talk to Jyn anymore. The places they sent him to, the things he saw. He hadn't felt like that since he was six and saw his parents killed in front of him. She was light, sun. He felt tainted. _If she only knew what he had to do . . . all for the sake of protecting people. . . he couldn't bear it._

He smiled sadly at her. "I was planning on it but . . . they asked me to stay longer." He didn’t want to think of his last assignment. He had been successful but had failed in so many other ways. He needed to get out. He needed to go home.

"So are you still . . . what is the word? Active duty?" She asked.

He smiled at her. "No . . . just reserves. I report for a weekend once a month to the nearest base." Or drop spot if Draven wishes. Officially he was still Army, as was Kes.

"So . . . you'll be here? For a while?" He smiled at her. _Ahh that's what she had been getting at._  
He nodded his head. That was his plan. To find his way home.

Kes came back with the pizza. As they ate, they both gave Cassian the latest news and gossip. He noticed a few guys stopping by the table, to say hi to Jyn. He didn't say anything at first, merely raising his eyebrows when the fifth guy came to same hi.

Jyn went up to use the restroom and that's when Cassian glared at Kes. "How many guys has she been dating? You could have warned me.”

Kes shrugged his shoulders, chewing on his pizza.

"I don't know. It's not like she sleeps around," Kes said. Cassian's gaze darkened at the thought. "She just goes out. It's all very platonic. She knows better than to tie herself down," he said, pointedly looking at him.

Cassian had the good grace to look away. "Hmph," was all he could manage.

They went home, all three keyed up from being back together again. Kerrick and Randi came home to find them playing some kind of fighting video game with Jyn beating the crap out of both of them.

Kes complained to his mom and dad when they walked in. "You guys let Jyn hack the Xbox? Her fighter has way too much power. It's not fair."

Kerrick looked away. Jyn had amped up his fighter too which is how he had been beating Kes lately . . .

 


	9. Here and Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn learns about her options for college.

Cassian wasn't too sure what to expect from Jyn when he came home. He found a small apartment in town not too far from the lake but it wouldn't be ready for a couple of weeks and Randi said it would be fine for him to stay as long as he wanted.

He didn't expect him and Jyn to start where they left off. What he didn't expect was for her to keep dating other guys. And it was a different one every week. With her and school and work, and him getting a job at the gym Kes worked at and finding an apartment, neither had much time to really talk. What gave him solace was the fact that she still wore his charm.

It was late on a Saturday night, way past her curfew, when she snuck in, closing the door quietly behind her.

"A little bit late," said a voice in the darkness

Jyn jumped.

Shit. Cassian.

She hadn't known what to do. If it was up to her, she'd go running right back into his arms, but he had kept himself at a distance, going back to the platonic relationship they once had. So . . . she did the same, keeping the dates she had promised before he had even come back.

“You're not my dad," she said immaturely, brushing past him.

He grabbed her arm. "Well somebody should be. That's the third guy this week."

She snapped. He had no right to be counting. "What do you want Cassian? Want me to not date at all? Stay home and pine over you while you work up the nerve to ask me out. Because I've done enough of that."

She breathed heavily. She hadn’t meant to snap at him. But she was tired of just waiting. She waited three years and he still hadn’t made a move.

Her next words cut him to the heart. "It's not like you want me anyways," she said, her voice barely a whisper.

He stared at her. How could she think that?

"Jyn . . ." he said, "I . . . I didn't want to intrude, you're doing good. You have friends, you're going out. I don't want to mess that up for you. I want . . . " he stopped. What did he want? He wasn’t active anymore. He had a job, was enrolling in college. The future was finally . . .looking bright for him.

She asked the question instead. "What do you want then Cass?"

"You," he said, quietly, as he pulled her to him, his lips descending on hers, fast, his tongue invading her mouth before she could protest. She melted into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. They had been apart for over two years and it still felt the same, this energy, this passion between them. She pressed closer to him, feeling him, his desire. Gone was the innocence of their first kisses from nearly three years ago. It was replaced with fire, a burning need for each other.

He pulled away from her slowly. They were in her parent's house for chrissakes. He needed to get ahold of himself. Randi and Kerrick had been kind enough to let him stay here. He couldn't betray their trust like that.

She looked at him, her eyes smoldering to a dark green.

Instead of kissing her again, he pulled her to him, hugging her tight. “I’m so sorry, Jyn. For not calling you, for not staying in touch. I just . . . it was too hard.” He was shaking. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Jyn absorbed the apology. “I forgive you, Cassi. You’re here now. That’s what matters.”

  
Things quickly fell into a routine for them. Jyn still had a couple of months left of school and Cassian had refused to kiss her let alone hug her until he had moved into his own place. He never took Jyn back to his place, always made sure not to be in her room alone. The only time they spent alone was when they spent the day together, often taking long hikes. They tried going to the movies but then Kes would often accompany them. Even then, Cassian had set boundaries, taking things slow (much to Jyn’s frustration), always being deferential towards Kerrick. Who hadn’t taken the news very well when he found out they were dating.

“He’s too old for her,” he grumbled to Randi one day when Cassian picked her up.

Randi rolled her eyes. “Uhhh . . . how old were you when we started dating?”

“Twenty-five.”

She nodded her head. “Uh huh. And how old was I?”

“Nineteen.”

She put her hand up, counting on her fingers the number of years, glaring at him. “So what makes you and I so different than those two. They’re actually closer in age than we were.”

“It’s different. It’s Jyn.”

She smiled sadly at Kerrick. “Yeah, but it’s Cassian. They’ve loved each other since they were little. Now it’s just a different kind . . . “

Kerrick was still frowning. “I just get worried. She was so sad when he left for the Army. What if he leaves again? What will she do then? Have you talked to her about college yet? Does she still want to go to MIT? What are they going to do if she goes off to college?”

Randi sighed. She hadn’t talked to Jyn yet about college. She knew her dream school was MIT but was hesitating in sending her acceptance letter because of the tuition. They needed to talk to her about finances.

 

Jyn was on her way out the door when Randi called out to her. “Jyn, honey, you have a few minutes? Kerrick and I wanted to talk to you.” She and Cassian were going to go on an evening hike so she sent him a quick text to pick her up in fifteen minutes.

“Yeah, you guys, what’s up?” Jyn looked at them, puzzled. They looked so serious.

“We . . . I know we haven’t talked about this yet, but we wanted to talk to you about college.”

Jyn waved it off. They were worried about tuition. “It’s okay, you guys. I’m going to stay close by, get in-state tuition. Probably Sac State or Reno.”

Randi glanced over at Kerrick. It was now or never.

“Honey . . . we know you want MIT and we want you to go. You don’t have to worry about tuition.”

Jyn eyed them warily. There was no way they could afford it.

“What’s going on? You guys aren’t taking out a loan are you? Because no way. I can get just as good a degree locally.”

Randi grabbed Jyn’s hand. “Honey . . your father . . .he had several patents . . . lucrative patents that he left in your mom’s name. Now that she’s gone, you inherit them.” She handed Jyn a bank statement. All Jyn noticed were the zeros. There were a lot of them.

“I don’t understand,” Jyn said. Confused. “Is this recent?” _Her mother had money?_

Randi looked at her, surprised by her reaction. She thought she would be happy. “No sweetie. Your mom had this set aside for you for awhile. Since you were little judging by the date. There’s plenty there for tuition, household expenses, everything. These were part of the papers the sheriff gave me when you came back. We were to use it for you, raising you, but we never dipped into it, waiting for you to go to college.”

Jyn paled.

All this time, she thought her mother was broke. Could barely make ends meet. She looked at the bank statement again.

She wanted to cry.

 _Why did she stay with that horrible man then?_ If she had all this, her and Jyn could have gone anywhere, they could have come here. She could have paid for her medical treatments and Jyn wouldn’t have had to spend three years getting hit, getting broken. Hating herself for not fighting back.

Jyn couldn’t breathe. She felt like she was suffocating.

Kerrick reached out and patted her hand, “Jyn, are you okay?”

She flinched at the contact, thinking of Krennic and his cold blue eyes.

She blinked, trying to focus. It wasn’t Krennic. It was Kerrick. His kind eyes.

She jumped up from the couch. “I have to go. I . . . need to get out.”

Then she ran out the door, aching to be outside. To be able to breathe.

Randi and Kerrick stared at each other. That definitely wasn’t the reaction they had hoped for. _What the hell happened?_

Cassian showed up, running a few minutes late. It was starting to get dark so he had packed a few extra things in case she still wanted to go for a hike. He smiled, thinking of the last couple of months. It was like time hadn’t separated them. They fell so easily into each other, often finishing each other’s sentences or both of them ganging up to tease Kes. While it took Kerrick awhile to come around, he still welcomed Cassian into his home, treating him as a second son. That’s what Cassian had been afraid of - that by gaining Jyn, he would lose Randi and Kerrick but that hadn’t happened.

He rang the doorbell, surprised that Jyn wasn’t waiting for him on the porch. Randi opened the door, looking upset.

“Cassian, come on in.”

“Is everything okay,” he asked anxiously. He saw Kerrick in the living room, poring over paperwork.

Randi sighed. “We were just talking to Jyn about college and all of a sudden she got upset and ran out.”

Randi shook her head, trying to replay the scene in her heard. “I don’t know what happened. She got pale, then she looked like she couldn’t breathe. Kerrick went to try and calm her and she jumped up and left.”

Cassian stilled. He recognized the symptoms. _Shit she was having a panic attack. What the hell brought it on? She hadn’t had one in years._

“Do you know where she would have gone? We’ve been trying to call her but she’s not picking up her phone.”

“I have an idea. I’ll text Kes once I find her.”

He knew exactly where she would have gone.

He walked through the forest, glad he had brought a flashlight. He was worried about Jyn. She shouldn’t have taken this trail. The path was barely visible at nighttime. It wasn’t too high up but it opened up into a pretty view of the lake, where you could climb down rocks that led to the water. It was beautiful at night time - with the water being so clear, the stars in the sky literally shined like crystals scattered on the lake. They had discovered it when she was younger and whenever she needed to think, to undo all the damage in her head, she wanted to come here.

He finally found her, perched on a rock, knees drawn up, her shoulders shaking.

She was crying.

“Jyn,” he said softly, not wanting to scare her, lightly putting his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t look at him, just continued to stare at the lake.

He sat down next to her, softly grabbing her hand. She was a mess - she looked like she had tripped. Her shirt was ripped and she had streaks of dirt on her face.

He didn’t press her. He knew to wait. She would speak eventually.

Finally she started talking.

“I let him . . . hit me. For three years. He used me as a punching bag.”

Cassian’s eyes watered. He knew, he always suspected. He never forgot that ugly bruise he saw on her back. Her eyes begging him to ignore it. He wanted to kill her stepfather. What kind of man - no scratch that, what kind of animal would beat a child? But hearing her finally say it, putting it out there. It was real. It had happened.

“Jyn . . . you didn’t let him do anything. He was the adult. It was all him. Not you. There’s no way you could have stopped him.”

She looked at him wildly. “No Cassian! You don’t understand. I let him. I could have fought back. I should have fought back. I should’ve asked for help. But he played me. He threatened my mom. He said he wouldn’t pay for her medical bills. He said she would die.”

“So . . . I let him. I let him slap me. I let him kick me. I let him yell at me. For what? For nothing. My mom died anyways.”

“The funny thing is . . . apparently we didn’t need him. Randi told me today my dad set up a trust. And my mama knew about it. We could have left. _I could have left_. So why did she stay, Cassian, huh? Why did she stay with that horrible man?”

By this point, she was breathing hard, fast. She wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

Cassian gathered her in his arms. She was shaking so hard. He had never seen her like this and he didn’t know what to do. He considered calling Kes but then that would require Jyn to explain what happened and there was no way he would make her relive that. Instead, he just held her, whispering words of comfort, drawing circles on her back, trying to get her to breathe.

“Shhh . . . honey. I’ve got you. Just relax. You need to breathe. Breathe with me.”

He cupped her face, looking at her. Her eyes were wide, not focused. She was still breathing hard. “Jyn, breathe with me, c’mon. Inhale.”

She breathed in with him.

“Exhale.”

She breathed out with him.

“Again. Inhale.”

He locked eyes with her. Breathing in.

“Exhale.”

Her eyes slowly came into focus, breathing out.

He repeated the exercise, all the while never taking his eyes off of her. She had finally calmed down, her head hanging limply on his shoulder.

Fuck, she had scared him.

A question had been burning in his mind ever since she was little, but he was always afraid to ask it. He was more afraid of the answer but he needed to know. If the answer was yes, then Jyn was going to need a lot more help than he could provide.

“Jyn,” he whispered.

She looked up at him, her smile watery.

“Do you trust me?”

She nodded her head. “Of course.”

“I need you to tell me the truth.” He swallowed thickly. He hated to ask. “Did he . . .did he ever . . . ?”

He couldn’t bring himself to say it. Child abuse was horrible in of itself. But sexual abuse. He cringed.

Realizing what he was asking, Jyn shook her head. “No. Never. I swear. I don’t think I would have been able to come back from that.”

He let out the breath he was holding. Thank God. He still wanted to hunt him down and kill him.

He noticed she was shivering. He took off his jacket and gave it to her. His hand came away wet when he placed the jacket over her shoulder. Blood.

“Jyn, you’re bleeding? What happened?”

She looked at her shoulder, at the red seeping through her shirt. “It must have happened when I fell.”

He shined his flashlight on the cut. It was pretty deep . . .she must have hit a rock. It was still bleeding too. “We need to get you cleaned up. We can go back to my place. It’s closer.” He didn’t want to take her back home yet. She was still fragile, hurting. Randi and Kerrick would have questions for her and he didn’t think she was strong enough yet to answer them.

He held her hand as they walked back, keeping her close to him. She had never been inside his apartment before. He unlocked the door and she walked in. It was sparsely decorated. A small couch, a TV, a bed. He got the first aid kit out and walked over to her. She had on a button down t-shirt with a tank top on underneath. The shirt was already sticking to her shoulder, the blood having matted it down. He winced when he saw what he had to do.

“Uh . . . you can sit on the bed if you want. It might be more comfortable. I’m going to have to take this off,” he said, grimacing. “It might hurt a little bit.” He pulled the shirt off slowly, Jyn biting her lip as it grabbed at her skin.

He was murmuring words in Spanish to her. _“Lo siento. Lo siento.”_ _I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. “Estarás bien.” You’ll be okay._

Once he got her shirt off, he cleaned the wound with peroxide, waiting for the liquid to fizz before he dabbed at it. She had her back to him, the strap of her tank top pushed down so he could clean it. He dipped a washcloth in warm water and cleaned the dirt from her face, her neck, her arms and then finally her shoulder, being careful around her cut. He put on some antiseptic cream, gently rubbing the cream in a circle on her skin. .

Before he could stop himself, he kissed her shoulder lightly, running his lips over her shoulder blade to her neck. Her back arched under his soft touch. His lips moved to her other side, as he slowly moved the strap down, baring her shoulder to him.

She curved her face into his neck. “Cassian,” she whispered, turning around, her hair falling loosely over her bare shoulders. She kissed him hungrily and he responded, pulling her closer to him. His hands danced at the seam of her top, itching to go under it, to feel her bare skin against his hand. Jyn didn’t hesitate, her small hands going under the back of his shirt, burning his body as they caressed his back.

They had had makeout sessions before but he always kept it PG. Never going too far. They were always outside, or on the porch at her house. But being here, in his apartment, it was too intimate.

He should have taken her home. _What the hell was he thinking?_

“Jyn,” he whispered, slowly pulling her away.

“No,” she said, clinging to him. “Don’t push me away, Cassian. Not today.”

“Honey . . . I . . . want you. I want this. I just . . . when the timing is right.”

“The timing is right," she murmured. "Right now.” She knelt on the bed next to him and slowly peeled her tank top up over her head.

Cassian lost his breath, so entranced he was at how beautiful she was.

“I’m right here, Cass. With you.”

He moved slowly to take her in his arms. They both have had so much pain in their lives. He would do this right. He would take it slow. He would ease that pain for her.

She lay naked, wrapped around his body, her head on his chest, listening to his heart beat. They were both staring at each other, Cassian drifting his hand up and down her arms. He hadn’t felt this content in years, his time in the military having made him feel darkness. But she was bringing the light back into his life. It had slowly been building between them. Ever since they were young. This feeling.

They were in love.

 


	10. Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn decides on college. Cassian makes a decision that has a life altering impact on those around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry super angst up ahead. Please forgive me. Almost catching up to the Prologue.

Jyn was happy. Like bursting at the seams, sun-shining-down-on-a-puppy-parade happy. She had just graduated, her and Cassian were closer than ever before, her family was doing great and she had her choice of schools to attend. Life couldn’t be better.

The only dark cloud, the whisper of rain, was figuring out where to go to school. She had considered MIT given the news Randi gave her a couple of months ago but she hated to leave home. She hated to leave him. They hadn’t talked much about her plans. He had been encouraging her to go to MIT but didn’t say what his plans would be. She knew he couldn’t leave - he was still in the Army reserves and had to report in every month to the base.

She finally took the bull by the horns, declined the offer to MIT and accepted the offer to University of Reno. She was smart - she didn’t need a fancy degree to validate that. She could go anywhere, work at any major firm as long as she worked hard in college. She wanted to be home, near her family.

She had to tell Cassian. He would be upset, angry that she wasn’t pursuing her dream but it was already a done deal.

They were walking to her house from the lake when she told him.

“I sent in my acceptance letter to Reno,” she said, out of the blue.

Cassian stopped walking.

“You what?” he asked, surprise in his eyes.

She grinned. “I want to stay here, I don’t want to go away.”

He didn’t know what to say. He . . . had secretly hoped she would stay, not leave. But he wanted her to do what was best for her, not them.

“But Jyn . . . MIT was your dream. You can’t walk away from it.”

“Cass . . . it was my dream. But . . . I . . . can’t . . . I don’t want to use the money on that. I’d rather put it to good use.”

He stayed quiet. It was still a sensitive subject for her, the trust fund her mother had left her. He never brought it up, waited for her to talk about it. He had a feeling she didn’t want to touch it, acknowledge it. The money represented too many bad things in her life - her father leaving, her mother dying, her abuse. He could see why she chose to ignore it.

Stopping and turning to look at her, he smiled. “Are you sure this is what you want, Jyn? Absolutely positively sure?”

She grinned at him, her smile lighting up her face, nodding her head.

He picked her up, twirling her around, kissing her. He was so happy. They were finally making it through the hard times.

He dropped her off at her house and then started walking back home. He had a car now but everything was so close by, that he preferred to walk more often than not. She had the evening shift at the cybrary so he would pick her up later from work and take her home.

So engrossed he was in future plans that he didn’t notice at first that he was being followed. It wasn’t until he turned a corner and noticed a man across the street. The same man in the diner Jyn and he were in earlier. _I’m being paranoid. There’s no reason for me to be followed. All my work in the military, for the agency was classified. Under a different alias._

He walked briskly down an alleyway that led behind the shops to another shopping complex. He quickly hid, waiting to see if he really was being followed.

He was.

His training came back to him in bucketloads. Neutralize before they can get a jump on you. He didn’t have any weapons on him, they were kept safely locked away in his closet. But his hands could be a weapon enough.

He moved to advance on the stranger when a familiar voice called out to him.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Andor.”

Draven. It was one of his lackeys.

Davits Draven, his commanding officer, came out from the shadows of the building. He nodded to the man following him, motioning for him to leave.

“What the fuck was that all about?” Cassian asked, hiding his relief. “Why are you having people following me?”

“Just testing your instincts. Wanted to make sure you still had them.”

“Why?” Draven didn’t make housecalls. Something was going on.

“I need you to come back in. A long-term assignment.”

Cassian shook his head. “No. I’m out. We had a deal. I did that last assignment and I could take leave.”

“Things have changed.”

“Not for me, they haven’t.” Cassian challenged back.

“Oh yes, they have, Andor.” Draven murmured, his face sorry for what he had to do next. He tossed a small tablet to Cassian. “Things have definitely changed for you.”

Cassian turned on the tablet.

He paled.

There were pictures. Pictures of Jyn. Walking to school. Helping people at work. Pictures of her at her high school graduation. Older ones when she was sixteen. Right after he and Kes left for the military. _What did this have to do with him?_

His fright turned to rage as he calmly pocketed the tablet then furiously pushed Draven against the wall.

“Why the fuck is the Alliance surveilling her? If you want me, take me. Leave her out of this.”

Draven’s next words cut him to the bone.

“That’s not our surveillance.”

They went back to the diner Jyn and him were eating at earlier, ordering coffee. Cassian’s hands were shaking. He needed to calm down.

Draven sipped his coffee slowly, adding cream and sugar. Cassian raised his eyebrows. _Who knew the agency’s top super spy liked his coffee sweet._

He kept his voice low. “There was an operation. Our agents made a significant blow, took out about ten dealers and then had time to retrieve information. This tablet was part of that retrieval. I recognized her, from the pictures you had in your room on base.”

He hated to ask the next question. He didn’t want to know.

He needed to know.

Why would some criminal organization be keeping tabs on Jyn?

“Who is watching her?”

Draven looked at him, his eyes cold. “The Empire.”

Flashes of memories hit Cassian like lightning. The sweet seven year old girl riding bikes with him in the sun. Twelve year old Jyn with the haunted look in her eyes having just lost her mother. The feisty sixteen year old, innocent, her whole life ahead of her egging him on in her green bikini. Now she was eighteen, beautiful, his lover, a target on her unknowing back. He would do anything to protect her.

Even if that meant leaving her.

He threw the tablet on the table.

“When do I report in?”

Draven smiled. Andor was back. They had hope.

“Now.”

 

Cassian drove to the Dameron’s house. He convinced Draven to let him check in tomorrow. He couldn’t leave without saying goodbye. His heart hurt. He hated to leave. But he had to protect her. At all costs.

He knocked on the door. Randi opened it, smiling at him. “Cassian, how many times have I told you to just come on in.”

She looked at him. All these years of knowing this boy, there was a different look on his face. Hard. But laying under that hardness was fear.

“Is everything okay?’

Cassian was losing it. He needed to get back in the game. He was getting too easy to read.

He smiled at Randi. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Is Jyn around?”

Randi shook her head. “She had to go into work early so we dropped her off.”

Cassian exhaled. He was worried she had walked. He didn’t want her alone. Not now. Not after seeing those pictures. Who knew what kind of sick fuck took them?

He needed to talk to Kes.

He went upstairs and Kes was laying on his bed, watching a baseball game.

He looked at Cassian and knew something was going on. He sat up right away. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m reporting back in. Tomorrow.”

“What? I thought you were staying? What the hell Cass?” Kes was mad. They both agreed if they were going to reenlist, they would do it together. Plus he was going to break Jyn’s heart. W _hat the fuck was going on?_

Cassian couldn’t say much. It was need to know. While he and Kes both had worked on the same base, Kes wasn’t as familiar with some of the organizations  they had been tracking. He was an extraction guy, hostage rescue, heavy hitter.

“I . . . have to go. One of the groups we were tracking is back. It looks pretty bad.” That was pretty much all he could say. Why they were following Jyn, he had no clue. But he would find out and eliminate every single person that posed a threat.

Kes stood up. “Then I’m in too.” He had been feeling . . . discontent as of late. He missed the action, the feeling of purpose. “When do you report back?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Have you told Jyn yet?”

Cassian bit his lip, his eyes starting to water.

Kes looked away discreetly.

“I’m going to tell her now. When she gets out of work.”

Kes looked at his watch, puzzled. “I thought she got out an hour ago. She should be home by now.”

Cassian ran out the door. _Fuck._

He drove like a bat out of hell to the cybrary. The staff that was still there said she had left almost two hours ago. The only reason she had to go in was to fix the network which didn’t take her very long.

He went back to the Dameron’s, she still wasn’t there. He didn’t want to worry Randi so he shrugged it off, said she probably went shopping.

He tried calling her and her phone went straight to voicemail.

He tried locating her on his phone. She was offline.

He was panicking. Draven would have known if she was going to be taken. He would have told him. Plus they eliminated the cell that had been tracking her. She would have been safe for awhile.

Fuck.

_Where are you Jyn?_

Maybe she went for a hike. He went back to his apartment, walking straight to his bedroom to grab his hiking gear. And his gun.

“Hi Cass,” came a sweet voice from behind his refrigerator door.

Jyn.

He didn’t realize he had been holding his breath. _Thank God. She was safe._ He shot off a quick text to Kes. _Found her._

He went to her and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms tightly around her. “Jyn. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“I’ve been here. Waiting for you. I got out of work early and didn’t want to go home yet. I thought you’d be here?”

She was smiling at him, her green eyes twinkling mischievously. He was still holding her tight, breathing her in. _For a second there, he thought he had lost her._ Those moments of panic. He needed to focus. He was no good to her like this.

He bent his head down, burying his face in her neck, kissing her frantically, trying to get rid of the fear he felt earlier. He wanted to bury himself in her, to forget everything, at least just for tonight. He had this one last night. She responded fervently, untucking his shirt from his jeans, sliding it off his shoulders. He pulled her in tighter, unbuttoning her jeans, her shirt. He couldn’t get enough of her. He needed her. He whispered words of need, love to her. _Mi amor, lo siento, lo siento, mi corazón. Lo siento mucho._

Jyn was so used to Cassian being gentle with her. Careful. Their lovemaking had always been sweet, passionate. But tonight, there was a need in his eyes. Some dark desire that she had never seen before. She gave herself to him willingly, hoping to drive out whatever demons he was dealing with. He was murmuring to her and she understood some of the words. There was one phrase she couldn’t put a finger on. She fell asleep snuggled at his side. They could talk tomorrow.

He woke up, alert, ready. Jyn was sleeping peacefully at his side. He looked at the way her hair fell across her forehead, the way her lashes brushed against her pale cheek.

She looked like an angel. His heart hurt at how much he loved her.

But he couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t say goodbye. She would wait for him, patiently, and he needed her to move on. Forget about him. Draven didn’t know how long this assignment would last. It could be one year. It could be five.

For his years in the military, being brave, fighting the enemy, Cassian Andor took the coward’s way out and left Jyn a note. Saying he was sorry.

 

Jyn woke up not too long after Cassian left, feeling the absence of warmth in the bed. She picked up the note and read it, her heart shattering into pieces. The spanish translation had come back to her of what he was saying the night before. M _y love, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, my heart. I’m so sorry._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay . . . everybody remember the key logger software in Chapter 7? When she entered in Galen's name?


	11. Pre-Extraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian prepares the team to extract Jyn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost catching up to the prologue here. Enjoy the ride. I would like to think it gets pretty wild. Also, please remember . . . very loose plot here.

_Six years later . . ._

Cassian walked quickly down the halls to the operations center. He had already put in the request for the muscle behind the extraction. Kes and Melshi. He grimaced thinking of Kes. _Kes had no clue Jyn had been a target all these years. That the Alliance had spied on her. That she was a target of the Empire._ Kes commanded all the extraction teams, but for this one, Cassian wanted the topnotch team. Pathfinders. Kes would lead it under Cassian’s command.

He walked into ops, seeing his partner, Kay, poring over multiple computer screens.

“You get the orders?” Cassian asked, rather brisk, not wanting to waste time.

Kay glanced at him quickly then went back to reviewing the computer monitors. “Yes, the mission was sent to everyone’s tablets. We’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

“Tell them five, Kay. We need to go now.”

Kay looked over at Cassian, finally paying attention to him. “The odds of them being ready with weapons in five minutes are extremely low. You know how Melshi is. Ten.”

Cassian pursed his lips, ready to argue. Kay stopped him before he could say a word. “Are you going to be able to handle this? You have a personal connection to _her._ Let Melshi do it.”

Cassian shook his head. “No. I have to. I . . . trust them but Jyn has no clue . . . no idea . . . what’s going on. She’ll need a familiar face.”

Cassian turned to leave when he almost bumped into Kes.

An angry Kes.

The soldier was normally so amiable, friendly. It was hard to believe there was a ruthless killer under that calm, fun exterior. But right now, this moment, he was livid. He shoved Cassian against the wall, locking his arm against Cassian’s neck.

“WHAT. THE. FUCK! WHAT the hell is going on, Andor?”

Cassian stared at Kes, his expression neutral.

“Don’t give me your fucking spy face, Cassian. We’ve known each way too long,” Kes said, slowly releasing him, noticing Kay had his finger on the panic button, which would have summoned a whole slew of agents to diffuse the situation.

Cassian turned to look at Kay. Kay shrugged his shoulders muttering “he’s not my problem. You’ve known him longer.”

“Cassian! Why are we extracting Jyn? What does she have to do with any of this?” He said, waving his arm around the ops center, the building. Kes was confused. Scared for his little cousin. He sat down wearily at a desk chair, shaking his head. “I don’t understand,” he said softly, looking at Cassian.

He looked at Kes. He wanted to tell him everything. But he couldn’t. So he stuck as close to the truth as possible.

“We just found out Jyn may have been sent some information relating to national security. Unfortunately, the Empire knows as well. We need to get to Jyn before they do.”

Kes’s heart stopped. Not Jyn. This mess, this secret off-the-books organization he worked for. He didn’t want her involved. He hadn’t seen Jyn in two years. Not that it was either of their faults. She made sure to visit their parents often but with his work, his assignments, they had always been ships passing through the night.

He was still confused.

“Why Jyn? Of all random people in the world, how did she end up with it?”

Cassian stared at him, eyes unblinking. “Her father sent it to her.”

_Her father was alive? Fuck._

 

They took a military transport to the nearest base in Nevada. Jyn worked at a high-level research university that was in the mountains of Nevada, about an hour north of Lake Tahoe. Cassian was surprised she had returned home after going to college. _He knew he couldn’t. Memories of her, their summers, growing up. It was too hard._

Cassian looked out the window of the plane staring at the clouds. He was always tense before missions, but this one. He was anxious, nervous. This one was too close to home. Her life was at stake. _He needed to get to her. Fast. Their only break was that he knew where she was. But the Empire, they would find out and they wouldn’t be far behind._

“So . . . we’re going to save your girl?” Melshi interrupted his thoughts. Kes looked up - glaring at Melshi then directing it at Cassian.

“She’s not my girl,” he said softly, still looking out the window. “Not anymore.”

Kes quirked his eyebrows. He never knew what happened between them, just that Cassian left, reenlisting back in the military and Jyn ran off to college putting as much distance between herself and home, going to MIT. Having graduated at the top of her class with her degree in three years, in cyber security, Jyn had her pick of jobs. He was surprised when she picked a university, close to home. Seemed like Cassian avoided home as much as Jyn embraced it.

 

Cassian had them set up in one of the buildings on campus that was currently being remodeled.

“Here’s the plan. Jyn is supposed to get out of work at 9:00pm. I’ll intercept her as she’s walking to the parking lot. Kay,” he barked, “you don’t show any signs of visitors do you?” Kay looked at his tablet, that was tracking all transportation to and from the campus.

“No, nothing indicates their presence.”

Cassian took a deep breath. “She may not come with me willingly. If that’s the case, Melshi, Kay, I’ll need your help in making sure she comes with us.” _He wanted to avoid frightening her, threatening her. But time was of the essence. They needed her, they needed the hard drive and then they needed to get the fuck out of there._

Kes snorted. “That’s a horrible plan. Jyn is going to beat the shit out of you and then refuse to come with us. It would be better if you stayed here and I approached her.”

Cassian mulled it over. It was a better plan but they had to work fast. Kes would hesitate to grab her, would try to cajole her. _No, it would be better if it was me._

He shook his head. “We don’t have time for a family reunion. We’ve got to make this quick. I’ll call you if she gets out of hand.”

Kes shook his head. _Bad idea, Andor. I’ve seen her, talked to her, fought with her in the last six years. You have no idea._


	12. Extraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team extracts Jyn. Kes finds out some hard truths about Jyn's past.

Cassian had been watching her all evening. She almost caught him once but he ducked his head down and quickly walked into a building. _Shit. He was losing it. Maybe he should have let someone else lead this._

He waited patiently while she stayed at work, using his binoculars to track her movements. Her office was on the top floor surrounded by windows. He wished she would close the blinds. If he could see, so could everyone else. He sighed heavily. God, how he had missed her. He wished . . . he had wished for so much more for them than this. This chaos. He prayed they would make it out alive.

She worked later than expected. Kay was giving him updates on incoming traffic, keeping an eye out for unexpected visitors. She walked quickly out of the building, her eyes darting around.

 _That’s my girl, he thought. Stay alert. You know someone is watching._ It was now or never. He walked up behind her and gently touched her elbow.

“Jyn.”

Seeing her from afar all these years, through video feeds, photos, hadn’t prepared him for the natural fire that was Jyn. Her green eyes flashed quickly in recognition. He remembered her sweet face, her innocent eyes. The ones that always forgave.

This time they didn’t.

She punched him in the face.

 

He was pretty sure his eyeball was knocked out of his socket. “Ow! Shit! Jyn. What the fuck? That hurt!” _When did she become so strong?_

He was momentarily blindsided after she hit him. His ear bud went off. Laughter. “Andor, did she just hit you?” Melshi could barely keep the laughter out of his voice. He could overhear Kay saying they needed to go and help him. “Cassian I told you the likelihood of her injuring you was very high. Do you need us to go in?”

“I’m fine,” he muttered, looking back at Jyn. She stood there, trembling, that fire back in her eyes. “Meet me at the car.” He looked back at the building they were in, rubbing his cheek, failing to notice the two _students_ that walked up to Jyn. He turned around when he heard her yell.

“Hey, what the hell, let me go!” Jyn shouted. Each one had grabbed one of her arms and was attempting to grab her.

“Kay, Melshi, need backup now.” Cassian went to help Jyn but before he could get close, she had already flipped one of the attackers over her back and kicked him. Cassian winced when he heard the crunch of bone meeting with the impact of her shoe.

Jyn looked at him.

She didn’t look terrified. She looked pissed.

The second attacker came at her with a knife. Jyn swung her backpack to his outstretched hand, knocking the knife out. Her leg kicked out at his knee, making a dull thud as the ball of his joint was dislocated. The man fell flat on his face, then Jyn went to aim to kick his side when she felt arms pulling her away.

“Leave it. He’s down. We need to go - there’s more where they came from.” Cassian urged her. Jyn pulled back, confused.  

“I don’t understand - they were just trying to mug me. More where they came from?”

He raised his voice. _They didn’t have time._ “Jyn. WE HAVE TO GO. NOW.”

Kay and Melshi came running, breathless. They looked at the two attackers moaning on the ground, Cassian’s black eye and at Jyn, green eyes flaring sparks, fists ready to fight, refusing to move. Kay, made the most efficient decision and wrapped his arm around Jyn’s neck, effectively cutting off her air supply.

Trying to breathe, digging her nails into Kay’s arm, she looked at Cassian, hurt, panic in her eyes. “No Cassi . . . don’t let them hur - - -.” She passed out before she could finish the sentence. He knew what she was going to say. _She didn’t want to be hurt. Not again._

Melshi quickly threw her over his shoulder and they sprinted to the SUV Kes have driven up in before any more agents arrived.

Kes heard and saw the entire exchange through the comm unit. He had never seen Jyn look so frightened as she did when Kay was subduing her. The guilty look on Cassian’s face suggested he knew why she was scared.

_What the fuck was going on?_

 

Cassian was scrambling trying to find a safe house. They needed somewhere stable, where they could regroup. They needed to get Jyn someplace safe before she woke up. Melshi had given her a sedative muttering something about trying to calm down a wild banshee. He entered the codes on his tablet and an address popped up, twenty minutes out.

“How long will she be out?” He asked, anxious. He wanted her to wake up, to reassure her she was safe. But fuck if he wasn’t scared that she would beat the shit out of him after seeing what she did to those agents. The SUV had little space to hide in. The shiner to his eye was proof of her anger, and that wasn’t even under duress.

Melshi looked at his watch and then at the dosage he gave her. “About an hour, give or take.” He grinned at Cassian. “In all your missions, Andor, never seen you come back with a black eye,” he teased.

Cassian shot daggers at Kes. _Kes must have known she could fight._ “It would have helped to have known she was taking self defense lessons,” he pointedly said to Kay. Kay had been charged with tracking her movements over the last five years. How could he not know she was a fighter? Her ease of movements, the skill and efficiency she used in taking down the two agents, indicated she had been training for a while.

Kay shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing in her movements suggest self-defense. She goes to the university’s gym before work and after work however what she does there is unknown.”

He touched a few icons on his tablet. “Oh look, the gym offers a self defense course.” He looked again. “Oh . . .”

“I have a fucking black eye, Kay, and all you can say is ‘oh’?”

Kay winced. “Looks like Jyn teaches the self-defense course. . .”

_It makes sense, Cassian thought. Her wanting to teach others to protect themselves._

 

Kes stayed quiet, driving, focusing on the road. He really wished Shara was here. She was their guns, their security. She could drive or fly just about anything. He wanted to go in the back seat and give Cassian a matching black eye. He was hiding something from him, he just couldn’t figure out what.

They arrived at the safehouse after midnight. Cassian gently picked up Jyn and carried her inside, laying her down on the bed and covering her with a soft blanket. She looked so peaceful asleep, her thick lashes lightly touching her cheek. Her hair was longer now, darker. He stood back, staring at her, trying to commit this vision of her to memory. He hated himself for breaking her heart, for leaving.

He heard Kay and Kes arguing. Kay had handcuffs in his hand. Kes was blocking the door to Jyn’s room. “She doesn’t need to be restrained,” he argued.

Kay huffed, rolling his eyes. “Are you kidding me? She attacked Cassian and made short work of those agents. The odds of her beating the shit out of each and every one of us are very high.” He looked at Cassian, for affirmation. Cassian shook his head, his stomach flipping when he saw the handcuffs. “No Kay. No restraints.”

Kay looked offended. “But - - -,”

“Do not use those on her. That’s an order!”

Kes and Kay both stepped back, surprised. It was rare for Cassian to pull rank as the senior agent.

“Kes will go in there with her. She’s least likely to attack him.” Cassian moved to step out of the room but Kes grabbed his arm.

“We need to talk. Now,” he hissed.

“And that’s my cue to leave,” Kay remarked, leaving to join Melshi who had the good sense to stay in the kitchen.

 

“You need to tell me what’s going on, Cass. Friend to friend. Not senior agent to agent. Jyn is my family.”

Cassian stayed quiet, avoiding Kes’s gaze.

Kes pleaded with him. “Cass . . . she’s my only family. She’s my sister. We grew up together. You’re hiding something from me. She . . . the look in her eyes when Kay subdued her. It was as if . . .”

Cassian flinched. Kes was figuring it out.

Then a soft voice said, “it had happened before.”

They both turned. Jyn was awake.

 

Kes immediately went to Jyn. “Hey,” he said, gently sweeping her hair out of her eyes. “Are you okay?”

She looked at Kes then darted a glance at Cassian.

She rubbed her head. “My head hurts and I feel like I got hit by a train.” She shook her head, as if to clear the cobwebs out.

“I don’t understand . . . Kes, what are you doing here? And what the fuck is he doing here?” she said, motioning over to Cassian. “I just remember walking to my car, then _he_ shows up, then those jerks tried to mug me and then _his_ friend, tried to suffocate me.” The look she gave Cassian was one of hurt. He of all people should have known how she would react. But he left her, he could’ve cared less.  

Cassian looked at her, his expression unreadable. “I’ll go get you some water,” he murmured, walking out of the room.

Kes turned his attention back to Jyn. She was looking at him, waiting for a response to her questions. “Jyn, sweetie, the men . . .,” he paused, trying to figure out how to phrase it. “The men who tried to attack you. They weren’t random thugs. They were trying to _take you.”_

Jyn instantly paled. There was only one man in the world who threatened to take her away, to make her disappear. It took years for her to get over the nightmares, worried that he would come back. Why would he try now? She wasn’t a little girl anymore, she wasn’t a stray dog to be kicked around.

 _“Krennic,”_ she whispered. “ _He’s back.”_

A glass shattered.

Kes’s eyes widened.

Then two voices asked her at the same time. “How do you know Krennic?”

Cassian had come back with her water but hearing Krennic’s name on her lips had shocked him and he had dropped the glass.

“He was my stepfather.”

Cassian paled.

Both men looked at each other. There were too many coincidences. Kes was starting to wonder what kind of game the Alliance was playing. How did Jyn end up in this mess? A father whose sheer brilliance in of itself was a weapon to be used and a stepfather who was on Homeland Security’s top ten terrorist list.

_What the fuck was going on?_

Cassian stared intently at Jyn. He was remembering the whispered confession, her disgust with herself for not being stronger. She had never told him his name. It was as if saying his name would have made it all too real for her. All this time and the bastard who beat her as a little girl was the face, the shadow he had been chasing the last five years.

Kes, noticing Jyn’s withdrawal and Cassian was looking like Casper the fucking friendly ghost knew something was up.

He grabbed Jyn’s hand, trying to soothe her. “Jyn . . . I . . . don’t understand. Why would you think he would be after you?”

Jyn’s lip trembled. She looked at Cassian, as if to beg him not to make her repeat it. The vulnerability in her eyes tore at him. He just wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, soothe her.

Kes could barely hear her whispered answer. He prayed to God that what he heard wasn’t right, didn’t happen. Jyn said it again.

God didn’t answer his prayers.

 

“How long have you know, Andor?”

Cassian ignored him. He was worried about Jyn. They left her alone in the room to decompress. Everything was too much. After telling her that Krennic was a wanted man, with known terrorist connections, she had started putting the pieces together. He hadn’t mentioned yet about her dad but it wouldn’t be too soon that she would start to realize her dad was in the middle of this.

Kes repeated his question, this time shoving Cassian against the wall. “Cassian! How long have you know that Krennic was using Jyn, MY baby cousin, as a fucking punching bag?” He was furious. _How did they get to this point. They had been best friends, inseparable but now he felt like he was looking at a stranger._

Cassian looked Kes in the eye, unblinking. “About six years. But I suspected it when she came back home. I just . . . I never knew it was Krennic. She never said his name."

“You bastard,” Kes swore at him. “How could you not have told me, told my parents? We’re her family. We had a right to know.”

“Because I asked him not to. Because to tell you would have given _him_ more power than he deserved. Because I wanted to protect _you_ from the truth. That for three years this man hit me, beat me, and I let him.”

Jyn had come out of the room and had overheard them arguing. Kes shouldn’t blame Cassian. Jyn had made him promise. She couldn’t bear for anyone else to know, for her aunt and uncle to know or to think that they didn’t protect her. She didn’t want them to bear that burden. And now Kes did. Cassian had been shouldering it for years now.

“Now . . .why don’t you two stop fighting and tell me once and for all what the hell is going on? Why was I attacked and how does my father fit into this mess?”

Kes and Cassian both exchanged looks. _It was time to fess up._


	13. Secrets and Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn figures out some of Cassian's secrets.

Cassian didn’t know where to start. With the pictures he received over five years ago. The assignment before he came back to town. The Alliance. The Empire. It was all too much for a civilian to absorb. Not to mention that Kes barely knew half of it.

He looked at Jyn. She was waiting, a determined look on her face.

“Jyn, do you remember much about your dad and his work, before he left?”

She shook her head. “All I can remember is that he worked for the government. I thought Krennic was his boss.” She sucked in a breath at the thought of Krennic. His cold blue eyes, unflinching stare.

Cassian saw Jyn pale and decided to go down another path.

“Your dad was working for the government. He was a military scientist. He was developing technology for us to use on the war against terror. He was going to give us plans, new technology but then he disappeared, switched sides, ended up working for a criminal organization, the Empire.”

Jyn tensed up. “My dad did not betray his country. He wasn’t a traitor.”

Cassian eyed her shrewdly. “We know. Somehow they got to him.”

Jyn ran her hand through her hair. “I don’t understand. How does Krennic fit into all this?”

Cassian shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ve been chasing him for years but we never had his name until recently. I . . .all this time . . .he was right under our noses.”

Jyn looked out the window, trying to remember the night her dad left. It was so long ago. “Krennic was there the night my dad left. They must have threatened him, maybe Krennic moving in was their way of controlling my dad. That we could be hurt at any time.” She folded her arms across her chest unconsciously, as if ready to curl up into a ball, to avoid getting hit.

Cassian stared at her. He saw red. He would kill Krennic with his bare hands. “Jyn,” he said softly. “He can’t hurt you anymore. I won’t let him.”

Their eyes met briefly, connecting, both remembering the comfort Cassian had given to Jyn when she was younger, sorting through her grief. She bit her lip and looked away.

Cassian was thinking. There were too many pieces missing. He felt that it was right there, in the open for them to see, but they weren’t seeing it.

A thought struck Jyn. She didn’t realize it before now. “Cassian, is my father still alive?”

Cassian silently nodded his head yes.

“You bastard,” she swore at him. “How long have you known?”

“About six years.”

Jyn did the math. That’s when he left. A look of hurt crossed her face. “Did you know when we were together?” Her voice small. Had he betrayed her even back then?

“No, Jyn, I swear. I didn’t know. Not until I was called back in. We were investigating y--- . . . uh . . . the Empire and the more research I did, about their weapons, their technology, I came across your dad’s name.”

Jyn turned to look at Kes. “How long have you known, _cousin?”_ She asked bitterly.

Kes shook his head wearily. “I just found out.”

_Well at least there was one honest person in this bunch, Jyn thought._

Cassian went on. “Jyn . . . your dad was working for the Empire but he was sending messages to us as well, warning us of their weapons. He couldn’t do much because he was in a secure facility but every now and then he would drop us with intel. His last drop though . . . it was the plans to a weapon that would shoot holes through our security systems, he never gave it to our agent. He sent it to you.”

Jyn gave him a puzzled look. “Cass, I never got anything. How did he send it? FTP site? Email? Cloud?”

His answer shocked her.

“US Mail.”

_Leave it to her dad to send her something via postal service. Who even used that anymore?_

Cassian could tell what she was thinking. He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s actually pretty genius of him. No one ever checks the mail anymore.”

Her thoughts flashed back to work, the small disc that was sent with no return address.

“I have it. Or at least I did have it. It’s at work . . . I didn’t know what it was so I put it in the safe.”

Cassian swore. Empire agents would be all over her work, her home. Anywhere she frequented. He already had the best agents on Kes’s parent’s house. He wasn’t taking any chances.

“How secure is the building, your office, the safe? Are we talking about things that can be picked or hacked into?”

Jyn snorted. “The whole building is secure. Biometrics, key card, physical keys, ”

He looked at her doubtfully. Why would a university library be on such lockdown?

She explained, “Our servers house research data. We have contracts with the feds, local agencies, international agencies on cyber security, national security studies, anything defense related.”

He was missing something. How in the world did Jyn end up working in such a field? He remembered she was good at hacking but she had been so passionate about social programming, wanting to develop technology to find low cost energy sources.

“Is there any other way to get into the facility, into your office?”

Jyn hesitated.

“Yes. But I could lose my job. Saw could fire me. Employees are only supposed to be there during the assigned hours.”

Kes finally tuned in and snorted.

Cassian stared at him. “Finally have something to share, Kes?”

Kes looked at Jyn. “Jyn. You know you can’t go back, right? Nothing’s safe. Your job, your home. My parents. This . . .this extraction is our last attempt to finish this once and for all.”

Jyn’s eyes were wide. _What the hell did they drag her into?_

Cassian closed his eyes. He needed to think. There was too much going on. Then he heard what Jyn said . . . about her job. Her boss. Saw. The missing link.

“Jyn . . . did you say your boss’s name was Saw? What’s his last name?” If it was Ge--

“Gutierrez.”

Cassian exhaled. Not the same Saw.  _Wait. Gutierrez was too close to Gerrera._

“You’ve met him before,” Jyn said. “Both of you have.”

Kes finally looked up, alert. “When?”

“When you guys picked me up from camp. He was a professor at MIT, recruited me to go to school there. He left before I graduated to run the IT division at the university here in Nevada. When I graduated, he headhunted me to lead the cyber security program. It was close to home. So I came back.”

Cassian vaguely recalled a dark skinned man, shaved head. It couldn’t be. But Saw - the name was too unusual for it to be a coincidence. How could they have missed this?

“Jyn, do you have a picture of him?”

She took out her phone. “He’s super paranoid. Doesn’t let anyone of his employees have social media accounts. We don’t exist in the university directory. But I got a photo of him at our department Christmas party.”

She showed him the picture.

Saw Gerrera. Head of the Partisans, an organization that operated in fifty fucking shades of gray. Definitely an enemy of the Empire and sometimes friend or foe of the Alliance.

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

He needed to brief Draven. He needed to get that damn chip and he needed to figure out how Jyn was at the center of all this. It was way too much of a coincidence that Saw was there at that camp, when Jyn was there. He needed to start at the beginning.

A memory tugged at his mind. The day Jyn came back. The sheriff handing Randi papers, legal papers.

“Kes, I need you to call your mom. I need everything that was given to her the day Jyn came back.”

They were in the living room of the safe house, poring over the structural plans for the university’s library. Jyn was going over the entrances and exits. Cassian was looking at other buildings, trying to find other access points. He was getting frustrated. There was no way to get in the building without being seen. The library was the main building on campus, right smack in the center. The Empire most likely had agents all over.

Jyn was looking at the plans and noticed they didn’t match to what she knew about the building. She should know. She had designed the IT infrastructure around it.

“There’s a way in from the Administration building,” she said.

Kay looked over at her, irritated. “No, there’s not. It’s not on the plans or in any of the maps I downloaded.”

Jyn looked at him, defiantly. “Yes, there is. It’s not on the plans. I built the security system. There’s a tunnel that runs T1 cables from the Admin building to the basement of the library. The elevators are old - before the 1920’s so they run on a cabling system. You can go up the shaft and access the office."

Kay typed in a few commands on his tablet. Probably googling cable elevators.

He sighed. _You think he would be happy I’m right, Jyn thought._

“It looks like that building is one of the few remaining places left in the state that has _those_ types of elevators.”

Kes looked at the map Jyn drew out. “It’s possible to go in. We just need to get to the Admin Building without being seen. We have a better shot of remaining hidden - the building is all brick and stone. No large windows like the library.”

Cassian nodded, his face impassive. “Let’s move in five minutes. Kay, you stay here with Jyn.”

Kes glanced at Jyn then counted backwards from five. Five. Four. Three. Tw - -

“I most certainly will not stay here with this asshole. He tried to choke me.” Jyn was furious.

“The only way I’ll stay here is if she’s restrained.” Kay was scared.

Cassian pinched the bridge of his nose. _Can anything go right today?_

“I’m going with you guys,” Jyn said.

“The hell you are!” Both Kes and Cassian said at the same time.

Melshi stayed quiet. He had never seen anyone go toe to toe with Cassian before.

Jyn argued. “You guys, the only way to get into the cyber office through _any_ access point is with biometrics. Meaning my hand print. Or a retinal scan. Every door, every trap door, every wall has a trigger. Plus the safe that the drive is in. So unless you have some super secret spyware that can copy my prints, your shit out of luck.”

Cassian paled. This operation happened so fast they didn’t have time to prepare. Nobody anticipated Galen sending something through US mail. It was too risky. He couldn’t put Jyn in danger.

He glanced over at Kes. He looked like he was going to vomit.

Kes shook his head at Cassian as if to mentally tell him to call it off.

They couldn’t fail. Too much was at stake. They needed that damn drive.

Jyn saw the hopeless look on their faces and knew she was going to have to make them do it. She was scared. Everything had happened so fast, the attack, Cassian being back, Kes was involved, her father was alive. _What the hell kind of world did she live in?_

“You guys, I can do this. It’s the only way. If we wait longer, how many people will this Empire kill in the morning to get to that drive? I have students that come in the morning, the receptionist. The janitor goes in at four am to clean. The receptionist comes in early to make coffee for me,” Jyn said, smiling sadly. “They are all innocent in this. We have to move now. I’m strong, I can run faster than you. Trust me.”

Cassian looked at Jyn. She had that look on her face. The one that refused to take no for an answer. A five man team could do it. If Jyn came with them, then they wouldn’t need to leave someone behind to watch her. Melshi and Kay could access the hills behind the university and set up sniper points if something went wrong. Jyn, Kes and he could go through the tunnel. It could work.

He looked at Kes. He was running the same scenario through his head.

Kes looked at Cassian, for once the two agreeing on something tonight. “Let’s do it.”

 

They made it inside the Admin building easier than they thought. Jyn maneuvered her way to the fiber tunnels with Kes and Cassian following close behind.

Something was bothering Jyn. Cassian wasn’t being honest with her. He was hiding something. It was right there but she couldn’t see past the hurt and anger towards him to figure it out.

“What made you start investigating my father?”

Cassian stopped. _Shit. She was figuring it out._

Kes piped up, not helping one bit. “Yeah Cass, why don’t you explain that to us?”

He tried evading the answer. “You guys, questions later. We don’t have time for this right now.”

Jyn thought back to the night she last saw Cassian. Six years ago. That’s what he said. _He knew six years ago about her dad._ She remembered the look on his face that night. As if he was running from something. He had been so relieved when he saw her in his apartment, as if he thought she had been hurt or tak - -.

She whirled on him.

“It was me, wasn’t it? That night, when you left without a word, it was me? You found out something about me and that’s why you left.”

Cassian avoided her gaze, looking down at the ground. He hated that night.

Kes interrupted. “Wait a minute, he never told you he was leaving?”

Jyn glared at Kes.

“You found out something. Something that made you leave me and made you start looking at my dad, my mom, my family.”

Kes was still hung up on the goodbye part. “Uh . . . excuse me. You never told her you were leaving? Cass, you were on your way to tell her after you told me you were going back in. Jyn didn’t come home until the morning. I thought she was upset because you left. My parents were mad she had stayed out. What the hell did you do that nig-”

Cassian looked away, blushing.

“Oh.”

Kes was pissed. “Good thing she gave you a black eye because if she didn’t I would have done it myself.” He never figured Cassian to be that type of man. The love ‘em and leave ‘em. But apparently that’s exactly what he did with Jyn.

“Kes . . .” Jyn said quietly. “It’s not his fault.”

He turned on her. “Well whose fault was it? Yours? How is it yours? He slept with you, made promises to you then he left, abandoning you, us, my parents. All without a goddamn word.”

Jyn had had enough. She figured it out. “Kes, goddamnit! Shut up. He left to protect me.”

Cassian had stayed still the whole time, looking at the ground. That last night with Jyn was not his finest hour. He remembered how he made love to her and she had so willingly taken him in, absorbed him, letting him bury his darkness, his demons in her. All the while giving herself to him, her brightness, her light.

Jyn could see the torment on Cassian’s face. She walked over to him, cupping his face, smoothing the single tear that fell with her thumb. “I’m right, aren’t I? I’m what led you to my dad. I was the point of origin.”

He nodded his head, staring at her, his brown eyes full of regret.

“They . . . the Empire had surveillance of you. Photos. You were only sixteen in these photos, Jyn! They were right before Kes and I left for the military. Photos of you walking by yourself. Hiking.” He closed his eyes, thinking of how vulnerable she had been. “Swimming at the lake, alone. Your high school graduation.”

He continued. “The Alliance discovered the photos during an operation. Draven recognized you from pictures I had up in my barracks. Nobody could figure out your real last name but I remembered it, then I tied it back to your dad.”

“Fuck.” Was all Kes could say.

Cassian went on. “That’s why I left the way I did. Had I said bye, you would have waited, and I couldn’t. I didn’t know how long I would be gone. I had to leave you so you could forget me. Hate me.”

She looked at him sadly. “I could never forget you Cassi. And I never hated you.”

Kes looked at the two of them, the love lorn look in their eyes. _Oh God. Here we go again._

“C’mon you guys. We need to get a move on. Enough of this trip down memory lane.”

 

They reached the elevator shaft and climbed up slowly. The cyber center had it’s own elevator which would lead them right into the main room. Once they reached the center, the system took a retinal scan of Jyn’s eye and the door whooshed open. Jyn knew Saw would be alerted the minute her eye was scanned and wonder what the hell she was doing. Especially if he figured it was coming from the elevator unit. If he called university police, they had maybe three minutes at the most to get the drive and run. Run fast.

 

_Saw Gerrera looked down at his watch. An alert. He made a phone call._

_“It’s begun. You need to give your team whatever they need. It ends now.”_

_Davits Draven hung up the phone and made a phone call._

 

They inched to the safe on their bellies to avoid the line of sight from the window. Jyn being the smaller and more agile of the two moved quicker and had the drive in her hand before Cassian or Kes had reached the safe.

Kes spoke into his earpiece. “Melshi, we got the drive. Be ready with the car. We’re on our way.”

Cassian could feel his phone vibrating. Who the fuck was calling right now?

“Now’s not a good time, Draven. I’m in the middle of something.”

“Andor, status update.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I just committed B&E into a university library with a civilian and Kes and you want a status update now?” Cassian lifted his head up from the floor. Jyn saw the red dot center on the back of his head.

“Cass!’ She screamed, throwing herself at him, knocking his head to the ground.

He heard the familiar sound of a bullet less than a centimeter from his head.

_Shit. Sniper._

Kes shouted into his earpiece. “Melshi, Kay we have a sniper on the west side of the library. Shut it down. We’ve got to get the hell out of here.”

Cassian looked at the window the bullet came through. _Odd. Why didn’t the alarm go off?_

He looked for Jyn. She was standing against the wall in the shadows furiously hacking into the keypad before the alarm went off.

His blood chilled. Two red laser beams were scanning the room, looking for a target.

His voice was deathly quiet. “Jyn. Don’t move. At all.” She stilled. She could see the red beams less than an inch from her.

  
Kes had never been so scared in his life. He wanted to run and push her down. That was his speciality. Strength, agility, force. He could do it, push her down and be the distraction. And probably earn two bullets in the brain while he did it.

_It would be worth it if he could save her._

“I know what you’re thinking Kes. Don’t. Melshi and Kay have this.” Cassian commanded.

The red beams kept inching closer to Jyn. As if they were teasing her.

He could see the fear in her eyes. “Cassian,” she whispered.

“Shhh . . . don’t move. It’ll be okay.”

He wanted to ask Melshi for a status update but he didn’t dare. He didn’t dare move or draw attention.

The red beam was about to reach Jyn. She was making herself as small as possible, drawing her arms in, ducking her head down.

“Cass . . .” Kes warned. “I’m about to do something really stupid if that beam moves one more centimeter towards her.”

Kes crouched, putting all his strength into his core, ready to pounce.

The beam flickered then swept fast over Jyn and landed directly on her heart.

“Cass,” she cried.

Kes pounced at the same time Melshi announced he took care of the threat.

The laser beam fell, pointing to nothing.

Jyn fell into Kes’ arms, sobbing. “Shhhh . . . sweetie. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Cassian patted Kes on the shoulder. “That was too close.”

Kes looked at him, then down at Jyn, still holding her. “Too fucking close.”

They made their way back to Kay and Melshi. Cassian looked at Melshi, assessing him. He looked like he had been roughed up. He must have had to take out the sniper with his bare hands. He didn’t want to know how close the sniper came to taking out Jyn. The look in Melshi’s eyes said enough.

The Empire would do anything to get rid of Jyn.


	14. Lyra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn learns why her mother stayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cassian is an excellent detective.

The drive back to the safehouse was quiet. Cassian had close calls in the past but this was too close. Jyn was sitting between him and Kes in the backseat, inspecting the drive. It was small, no bigger than the size of her pinky nail. She would need an adaptor before she put it in her laptop.

 

There was another black SUV in the driveway of the safehouse but this one had style. It was all black, with black matte rims, the lettering of the car in black matte. The small ladder hooked to the back of the car was also in black.

Draven had called in the cavalry. Shara Bey was back.

Kes smiled faintly when he saw the car. Everything was better when Shara was around. She was the only one that could reason with Kes and Cassian. Kay even listened to her. Melshi adored her. Jyn had met her two years ago when Kes brought her home for Christmas and took an instant liking to her. Plus she could fight like Floyd Mayweather. The odds were always in their favor when Shara was around.

She opened the door, her curly hair like a halo around her head.

“Jyn,” she said, opening her arms. 

Jyn smiled, walking into her hug. “I should have known you would’ve been in this mix too.”

Shara stepped back, looking at her. “I’m so sorry you got dragged into this. Honey . . . Kes and I barely found out yesterday.”

“I know, Shar. Cassian told me,” she said, pausing. “Most of it anyways.”

Shara glanced at Cassian. He had his spyface back on - not showing any emotions.

She walked over to Kes, giving him a deep kiss.

Jyn and Cassian both looked away, embarrassed. Kay rolled his eyes and walked into the kitchen. Melshi hooted.

Shara pulled away from Kes slowly. “Your mom gave me the papers you asked for. But she asked if she could talk to Jyn after she read them.”

Jyn looked up. “What’s going on?”

Kes handed her the letter. It had aged over the years, Randi rereading it every day, trying to understand what had happened.

Jyn started to read it but then quickly looked up at Cassian. “Can . . .is there someplace private, I can read it?”

Cassian took her to the bedroom they had put her in earlier. He started to leave.

“Could you stay?” Jyn asked, her eyes glistening. She recognized the handwriting and didn’t think she could do this alone.

Cassian nodded his head and sat on the edge of the bed.

Jyn started to read.

 

_Dear Randi,_

_If you’re reading this letter, then that means I’ve passed away. That I finally lost my battle against the poison in my body._

_I’m so sorry I cut you out of Jyn’s life. I didn’t have a choice. Galen left and I had to remarry and keep just me and Jyn together._

_Now that this letter has found it’s way to you, I need you to take care of Jyn. She’s a special little girl. You and Kerrick are the only ones that can keep her safe. You’re the only ones she has left._

_I have a friend. Saw Gerrera. Galen and I both trust him. The plan was for Saw to take care of Jyn but he’s not cut out to raise a little girl. She’s going to need a loving family. She’s going to need a protective older brother in Kes, a father that will look out for her in Kerrick and a mother to wipe away her tears and chase her nightmares away. That’s you Randi. Saw has arranged for you and Kerrick to become her legal guardians. I just ask that you change her name to Dameron. She can’t go by Erso anymore. It’s not safe._

_Randi, do not let Krennic keep Jyn. He has no rights to her. Only you. If Saw did as he was instructed, then Krennic will never know where she is. I’d like to keep it that way. If he does find out and tries to keep her, then you have to fight tooth and nail for Jyn. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that._

_Randi, a day may come where Saw will come for Jyn. If that day comes, then Jyn can go with him. But only if she wants to. It has to be her choice. She’s had so many choices taken away from her that this needs to be her decision._

_I have a trust set up in Jyn’s name. Please use the money to raise her and give her the best life she can have. I’ve included the bank and account information._

_Please tell Jyn that I’ve always loved her and that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry Galen and I weren’t there for her. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be around but I’ll make sure with my last dying breath that Jyn is safe._

 

She gave the letter to Cassian. He read it quickly then tapped a message to Kay. Something was odd about Lyra’s letter.

_Get all the phone logs from a month to the day Lyra Erso passed away. Then I want her autopsy report. And a goddamn medical history of all fucking Ersos._

 

Jyn was quiet, looking out the window.

“All this time . . . I . . . hated her for staying with him. I still don’t know why she did. With that money, we could have gone anywhere. We could have ran.”

Cassian looked down at his tablet. Kay replied back with the information he requested. He read over it quickly. His suspicions were confirmed. All the research he did on Galen, he was a patriot. Would never betray his country. He knew something happened to make him switch sides. He had a vulnerability. His family.

“Jyn,” he said quietly. “Do you still trust me?”

Moments passed before she finally nodded her head yes.

“Your mother was poisoned. She never had cancer. It was a slow acting poison that killed her.”

Jyn gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.

“How do you . . . why do you think this?”

“The letter, Jyn. Your mother said _poison._ Not cancer. Why would she not say cancer? I had Kay run a medical history on your mom’s family and what family we could find of Galen’s. Not a single case of cancer. The autopsy report was the final straw. The coroner never said cancer. She died of a heavy dose of thallium poisoning. It replicates the symptoms of cancer. Hair loss, weight loss.”

Jyn remembered coming back from the Dameron’s that summer. Her mother looked so tired and weak, already looking ill.

Cassian went on. “Your dad was working for us. But they must have got to your mom. Poisoned her and most likely threatened the same would happen to you. He had no choice but to leave. Krennic probably was assigned to keep an eye on your mother. Ensure she didn’t try to get help by always using you as leverage. He messed up though, thinking your mother was too weak. He got lazy. Your mother started making phone calls to Saw a month before she died.”

He paused and inched towards her slowly, hesitantly taking her hand in his.

“She made one last phone call to the Sheriff’s office the day she died. Her last act was saving you.”


	15. Galen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Galen's message.

He left Jyn alone to talk to Randi. He needed to check on the status of the drive. 

“Kay, where are _you_ at in decrypting the drive?”

Kay rolled his eyes. “This coding has no logic and doesn't follow any sort of encryption standards.”

Cassian was confused. “That's the point of encryption, right? To make it difficult to hack into?

Kay shook his head. “Never mind you wouldn't understand.”

“Kay - you have five minutes. If not I’m asking Jyn to try.”

Kay looked offended then tapped a few entries in his tablet. “Uh . . .looks like I have longer than five minutes because Jyn is no longer in the house.”

_Shit._

Both Cassian and Kes ran to her room. The window was wide open.

Kes looked at Cassian worriedly. “You don’t think they got -”

Cassian shook his head, sadly, looking at his phone. He had installed a tracking software on Jyn’s phone so he knew where she was at all times.  “No. I think she needed to breathe.”

He found her not too far away. She had found an area scattered with large boulders in the forest and had climbed up to the top one. Not wanting to alarm her, he called to her and said he was coming up.

Once he made it to the top of the boulder, the sight before him broke his heart. She looked so alone, her eyes having lost her spark.

“Jyn,” he said, quietly. “You shouldn’t have left the house. We need to keep you safe.”

She ignored him.

“How was your talk with Randi?”

A lone tear fell from her face.

 

_“Jyn, honey, are you okay? Kes couldn’t tell me much. Just that he had to pick you up, that it was not safe for you. What’s going on? Shara was here, Kerrick has deputies patrolling the house.”_

_“I’m fine Auntie. I . . .  can’t say much but I’m safe. I’m with Kes.”_ _  
_ _Jyn paused. “Cassian too.”_

_Randi stayed quiet for a moment, processing that piece of news. As if Jyn didn’t have enough to deal with._

_“Honey, I’m so sorry I never gave you that letter. You were so sad when you came back to us and I thought it would make things worse. I should’ve given it to you when you got older, or when you graduated. But you were so happy, so full of life. I didn’t want your past to come back and haunt you.”_

_“It’s okay,” Jyn said. “I’m fine now. You and Kerrick did more for me than anyone ever before. I just . . . I wanted to hear your voice and let you know that I’m okay. I’m sorry for putting you guys through this.”_

_“Oh honey, you haven’t done anything.”_

_Jyn looked at her watch. Cassian said she should only be on the phone for a couple of minutes in case the call was traced._

_“I . . .have to go. Please be safe Aunt Randi and hug Kerrick for me. I’ll see you as soon as possible.”_

_Jyn hung up the phone._

“Horrible,” Jyn replied. “This is all my fault. They wouldn’t be in danger if it wasn’t for me. You and Kes, you guys too. You would never have left, Cassian, if it wasn’t for me. Now Shara’s involved. What if something happens to her? Kes would never forgive me.”

Cassian sat down next to her, grabbing her hand. “Jyn, this is not your fault! None of this is. Don’t worry about Kes, Shara and me. We’re trained for this. We’ll be okay. I’m more worried about you.”

He paused. He still felt like he was missing something. The Empire was spending a lot of resources to hunt Jyn down. Was it to get Galen to make more weapons? He couldn’t figure it out.

He stopped thinking when Jyn laid her head down on his chest.

He closed his eyes, soaking in her warmth. He had missed this, her so much. Their closeness, their relationship. God he had loved her. He still did. He would die protecting her.

He let her stay like that for a few minutes, not wanting her touch to end .  . . but he needed to tell her about Saw.

He gently lifted her head up from his chest. Her eyes had slowly started to close. She was exhausted.

“Jyn . . . I need to talk to you about Saw.”

She yawned. She was so tired. It was nearly four in the morning. “I know that he works for the CIA.”

_What the hell? How did she know that?_

As if reading his mind, Jyn said casually. “When I was going to MIT, there were rumors that he was a spook. I thought it was just an urban legend to make him seem more fierce, scary. But when I started working for him, his paranoia, secrecy, I figured that he was some kind of government agent. I just . . .I never knew he knew my parents. That he was the reason my mother was able to get me to Randi and Kerrick.”

She rubbed her forehead. Nothing made sense. It was as if her life was a lie, predetermined. That she had no choice in her decisions. No power.

“Saw does what we call in our world ‘contract work’ for the CIA. He has contractors that work for him, called the Partisans. He hates the Empire and he hates that our hands are tied by such bureaucracy. He’s more willing to operate in gray areas.”

Jyn nodded her head, understanding. “So he does wet work for you guys?”

Cassian’s eyes went wide. _Where was she learning this?_ He briefly wondered if Melshi had been talking to her. “Uh . . . we try not to call it that. I think the term our director, Draven, uses is ‘liquidating assets’.”

_He didn’t know why Draven was so sensitive about that term. It’s not like he had any issues sending Cassian to do wet work._

Cassian stood up, extending his hand to help her up. “We need to get back. Kay’s having trouble decrypting your father’s drive. I wanted you to take a look at it.” He pulled her up fast and she lost her balance, stumbling against his chest. He grabbed her before she could fall, pulling her tight to him. She looked up at him, her eyes wide, her hands pressed against his chest. She moved her hands up to his shoulders, exploring his face. He slowly moved his face into her hand, lightly kissing her palm. He closed his eyes, breathing her name. “Jyn . . .when this is over, we . . .we need to talk.” She nodded her head, then turned to climb down the rocks.

 

Jyn took one look at the decryption and figured it out in less than a minute, grinning at Kay just to irritate him even more.

She scrolled through the contents trying to find the file Cassian had specified.

“Stellar Sphere. Cluster Prism.” She rolled her eyes, looking at Cassian. “Jeez, who comes up with these names.”

“Jyn, focus. What are the other projects?” Cassian snipped.

She went back to scrolling. “Black Saber. Stardu-”

She stopped, a quick flash. A memory.

 

 _She must have been five. Her parents took her to the park to play. It was the one time she remembered them being happy, enjoying the sunlight. Her papa was pushing her on the swing and he picked her up and swung her around. “I love you so much, my stardust.”_ _  
_ _Jyn preened. She was definitely a daddy’s girl._

_He took her to buy an ice cream cone when she asked him, “Papa, why do you call me stardust?”_

_He smiled at her lovingly. “Your eyes. When the sun hits them, they change colors, like stardust in the night sky.”_

_She smiled until she saw the man in white. Krennic. Sitting on the bench talking to her mother. Her mama looked scared, especially when she saw Galen coming with Jyn._

_“Honey, go back and play on the swing. Don’t talk to strangers.”_

_“But my ice cream cone . . .”_

_“Jyn, now.” Galen said firmly._

 

“No it’s not Stardust. What’s the name of the next file?” Cassian said, interrupting her trip down memory lane. Jyn shook her head. _Why was Krennic around, even then, when I was so little?_

She looked at the next name on the screen. “War Mantle.”

Cassian nodded his head. “That’s it. That’s the name of the weapon. Open up the file.”

Jyn tried to open the file but it was locked down. She typed in a few commands when a video file opened up. It was her dad. She looked at him, hesitating to hit the play button. Cassian lightly rubbed her shoulder, hoping it would comfort her. Kes and Shara looked at each other, both worried. Nobody had heard from Galen Erso since he mailed the drive. Nobody wanted to voice what they all thought. _That Galen Erso was dead and the Empire needed Jyn to continue his work._

Jyn hit play and her father’s face filled the screen.

Cassian had seen photos of him through the years, but a video, the family resemblance was damning. Jyn looked exactly like her father. The same color of eyes, the brown hair. But where Jyn was like a match, waiting to be lit up, Galen was a shell, pale. A man who had lost his family. Defeated.

“Jyn, my love. If you got this message, then I fear the worst has happened.” Cassian cringed, his hand tightening on Jyn’s shoulder. “I fear that you’ve been brought into this mess. A mess I started. I’m so sorry Jyn. I never meant for any of this to fall on you. You’re the only one that can stop it. It has to be destroyed. It . . . we could lose the war on terror  if this weapon is deployed, Jyn. The power it has to infiltrate systems, machines. It’s too much. Nothing is safe. Energy. Technology. This weapon can absorb and kill it all. I tried . . . I tried prolonging creating it but they threatened Lyra. You. When your mother died, I thought all was lost. I had no will to live. But then Saw . . . he passed me a message and said you were safe. So I’ve been waiting all these years, Jyn. You’re the only one I trust to take it down. You’re the only one that can. This weapon . . .  it needs to explode.”

The video started flickering, Galen was slowly fading away.  
“Jyn . . . the weapon is in Los Angeles, in the Ead - - -” The video ended abruptly. Kay immediately started typing into his tablet, looking up all facilities in Los Angeles starting with those letters.

“No!” cried Jyn. “Papa!” She tried typing in a few commands and the video wouldn’t play anymore. She put her hand on the screen. “Papa . . .”

Then an image came up on the screen, diagrams, flowcharts, maps. Jyn looked at them closely, studying them. She looked horrified.

“No . . . papa. How could you?” She whispered to the screen.

Cassian shook her shoulder. “Jyn, Jyn. What is it?”

She gulped, looking at Cassian. “Did you know what he was building?”

He shook his head. “All we were told is that it would annihilate all our security measures, systems. Is it a bomb?”

Jyn’s face was solemn. “No. It’s worse. It’s a . . .”

A voice came from the back of the room. “Satellite.”

Davits Draven had joined the party.


	16. The Weapon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Empire's weapon. Plans are made.

All the men in the room straightened their posture when their commanding officer, Davits Draven, walked into the room. Shara stayed slouched on the couch, pretending to play on her phone but was alert, ready to jump into the action. She wasn’t much for reverence.

 

Cassian spoke first. “Sir . . . a satellite? How is that a weapon?

Draven looked at Jyn, waiting for her to explain.

Jyn confirmed. “It’s not just any satellite, Cassian. It’s what it has the ability to do. It can infiltrate any computer system, anything electronic, anything online and control it.” The guys were giving her a blank look.

Except for Kay.

Kay looked like he might throw up. He understood the plans. He knew what it could do.

Jyn sighed, exasperated. She was trying to think of an example that they would understand. “It’s like a Transformer except in this case, a Decepticon.”

Understanding flashed across all their faces.

“Judging by these plans, the Empire can use this for anything to their advantage. Hacking airports, the electrical grid. _Nuclear codes._ _Banks._ They could plan a terrorist attack worse than 9-11 and we would be powerless to stop it. _”_

Kay’s tablet beeped, breaking the silence.

“I have a location. The satellite is located in the Eadu Building in Los Angeles.”

Cassian immediately started barking orders.

“Kay, get the floorplans for that building. We need to know where that satellite is and if its operational. Study those goddamn plans and find a weakness. I prefer not to bomb a building in downtown LA but will if I have to.”

He turned to his Pathfinders. “Kes, Shara, Melshi, weapons, weapons, weapons. Pull in the other extraction teams. We need to hit this building hard.”

He looked at Jyn. She was waiting for him to give her an order, something to do. He recognized her need to help. She was putting the burden of this weapon on her shoulders.

His face softened, remembering her father’s message. “Jyn . . . do you know why your dad said you’re the only one that could destroy it? He said it had to explode. That’s something we can do on our own.”

She put her head in her hands, shaking it. She was missing something. Why did her dad put this on her?

She looked at him, her hand going to her locket. He noticed she still had the charm he gave her, so many years ago. “I don’t know, Cass. I . .  maybe he thought I could hack into it and stop it? I don’t know. If it’s a satellite, it should be easy to destroy.”

“Uh Cass,” Kay said, interrupting them.

“Not now, Kay,” Cassian said. He was trying to think.

“Cass . . . we have a problem.”

He snapped, “What!?”

Kay showed him the building location.

Next door to LAPD headquarters.

“It gets worse. Apparently the Empire, being the good, tax-abiding, community oriented, terrorist funded organization that it is, contracts with LAPD for building security. Police officers, Cass. We can’t . . .” He trailed off. They couldn’t bomb it. They couldn’t kill police officers.

Draven finally spoke up. “We have another situation.”

Cassian was going to have a heart attack. He was tired, he hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours, and they were making no progress.

“What Draven? What’s the problem,” he asked, tiredly.

“Galen Erso is in that building.”

 

“THERE IS NO WAY YOU’RE BOMBING THAT BUILDING, CASSIAN ANDOR.” Jyn jumped up and got in his face, daring him to challenge her.

Cassian took a step back - he didn’t want to have two black eyes.

“Jyn . . . calm down. We’ll figure something out.” He looked at Draven, shaking his head. There was no way he could do it. It would kill Jyn. He’d go rogue if it came to that.

Jyn wavered, closing her eyes. “Cass . . .”

Then she dropped to the floor.

Shara immediately dropped to her knees, taking her pulse, feeling her heart beat. Cassian stood frozen, unable to move.

She looked up at Cassian. “She’s fine. She fainted. I think the stress of the situation . . . finally got to her. When’s the last time she had anything to eat?” She traced the faint bruises on her neck from Kay’s chokehold earlier. “Who the hell did this to her?” Shara glared at Melshi, who shook his head, eye-blaming Kay.

“We’re having _words_ later, Tueso."

Then she noticed Cassian’s black eye.

“Who the hell popped you?” This time looking at Kes.

“Wasn’t me darling . . .” he drawled, pointedly looking at Jyn.

Shara saw her bruised knuckles and smiled. She taught Jyn well.

 

“Cass, take her to the bedroom. She just needs rest. You idiots forget that she’s a civilian. I’m surprised she hasn’t had a panic attack yet.”

Cassian squeezed his eyes shut. He remembered her last one. _Just breathe, Jyn. Breathe with me. He remembered what happened afterwards too._

Shara snapped at him. “Why are you turning red? Are you not feeling good either? You guys are all a hot mess.”

Cassian turned and fled from the room, Jyn in his arms. Shara definitely did not hold back.

 

Shara turned to Draven. He had the same spy face that Cassian had sometimes. She could care less.

“We need a plan. You can’t kill her dad.”

Draven chewed the inside of his cheek. He hated when things got personal. _Fuck._ A younger Draven would have taken down the whole building, LAPD be damned. All in the name of the Alliance. He was older now and so tired of fighting, the killing, the deception. He wanted to fucking retire and not worry if someone was going to slit his throat. He remembered Cassian and Kes at nineteen, so patriotic, so youthful. Now they were killing machines. Kes had Shara, someone to help ease his guilt. But Cassian, every day, he was slowly dying inside.

Draven closed his eyes, thinking. “We need a distraction. Something to pull those rent-a-cops away from the building.” He vaguely wondered if Los Angeles had tested their first response plan. Every major city in the US was required to have one after 9-11. It was a call to arms. Any terrorist threat, active shooter alert, riot threat, required all active duty, undercover, off-duty police officers to drop everything and report in.

Shara eyed him warily. “You thinking of the first response plan?” She thought about it. “It could work. Riot?” she asked, a little bit too hopeful.

“No . . . has to be worse. Something big.”

“Dodger’s are in the  World Series. Game three is tomorrow night in LA.”

Draven smiled. That was definitely big. Plus the stadium was a good distance from downtown. The timing would be perfect.

“Active shooter? Bomb threat? Anthrax?” Shara threw out more suggestions.

Draven frowned. He was going to have to see when her last psych eval was performed. Shara was taking way too much pleasure in these scenarios.

“Bomb threats are for college students. The Empire needs to _believe_ that it’s an emergency or else they’ll be on alert. Active Shooter. But it has to be real. We need two teams. One for Eadu and one for the stadium.”

Shara updated Kes with the plan. He went to get Cassian to give him an update on the plan. He found him leaning against the headboard, asleep, his arms protectively around Jyn, who was asleep curled into his side.

Seeing the two of them so peaceful, at rest, made him hate the Empire more for destroying his family, threatening their lives. He was determined to see this through to the bitter end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Shara Bey.


	17. Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arguing ensues when Draven insists on Jyn going on the mission.

Cassian woke up, startled. _Shit, how long had he been out?_ He checked his watch, it was almost six in the morning. _Two hours._ He needed the rest. He had been awake for nearly thirty six hours. He felt a warm body shift next to him. _Jyn._ He remembered her fainting and taking her to the bedroom. She had briefly woken up and fluttered her eyes opened, her green eyes staring at his. He had whispered words to her, comforting her and she had snuggled into him, falling asleep.

He gently untangled himself from her and went to the living room. Kay and Melshi were passed out on the couch, Kes and Shara were poring over building plans on the table. Draven was nowhere to be seen.

“Have you guys slept yet?” He asked. Everyone needed rest. A tired agent was a dead agent. Shara smirked at Cassian. “We didn’t exactly sleep.”

Cassian rolled his eyes. Too much information.

Kes told him of Shara’s plan. It could work. But timing would be everything. Draven had received intel that Galen was being held on the same floor as the weapon. Probably as an insurance policy. They would need to disable the agents guarding Galen, get him out of the building, still set the bomb, and then light it all up to hell.

They had one problem. The bomb. It was too risky to use a major explosive. The Eadu building was one of the taller buildings in downtown LA. They couldn’t risk the infrastructure and the whole building collapsing. Then they ran the risk of other buildings nearby collapsing as well. They needed a bomb that could implode the device from within, without causing too much damage.

Draven came back with a metal box. Cassian wondered where the spy went off to. He was being way too sneaky, even for normal Draven spyness. He took out a black disc. Cassian and Kes eyed it. It looked familiar.

Jyn came into the room, bleary-eyed. She looked at the black disc, a confused look crossing her face. “What are you guys doing with Sparky?”

_That’s why it looked familiar. It was Jyn’s energy saving device. The one that blew up his snow plow, ruined Kerrick’s car._

Draven spoke up, “It’s not yours. It’s the property of the United States Government.”

Kes bit his lip. Draven hadn’t met the full power of Jyn.

“Bull-fucking shit,” Jyn shouted. “I had a patent on that. Are you telling me the US Government steals patents and uses it, reforms it for their own personal use?”

Draven had the good sense to stay quiet.

“What did you turn it in to?” She asked, examining it. “I hadn’t finalized all the calculations on its power source when I turned in my plans.”

Cassian knew what it was. It was the bomb. And Draven needed Jyn to detonate it.

 

They were arguing. Draven, Cassian and Kes. Shara was staying out of this. Kes wouldn’t forgive her for her input.

“She is not going with us to LA!” Cassian shouted, getting in Draven’s face.

“She’s not an agent, she has no training in hand to hand,” Cassian went on. Shara pursed her lips.

Draven sneered at him. “Oh really, how’d you get that shiner, then?”

“Draven, she doesn’t even know how to fire a weapon. Having her along . . . she could be a liability.” Kes added, trying to appeal to his sense of strategy.

“We need someone to set off the bomb.”

“Then send Kay, he can do it.”

“Listen Andor, Tueso's good but I need great. Your girlfriend, she’s a fucking genius. She created this tech. She knows the ins and outs. We can’t afford to lose. We haven’t had time to perfect this, we’ve only made some slight modifications that can harness the energy to implode the satellite.”

Cassian clenched his teeth. It was too close last time they took Jyn on a mission. Too fucking close. He couldn’t risk losing her.

“You guys,” Shara chimed in. “May - - “

“Don’t you dare say another word, Shara,” Kes said, cutting her off. Warning her.

She ignored him.

“You guys underestimate her. She can fight, obviously,” glancing towards Cassian. “We just need to give her cover. Cass, Kes, you go with her inside the building. Get Galen, plant the bomb. Melshi will position himself on the building next door. Kay can work communications and I’ll . . . neutralize. As soon as you plant the bomb, you’ll go to the skywalk and exit from the other building.

They both looked at her, stubbornly shaking their head no.

A voice from behind them spoke up. “It’s not your decision. It’s mine. I’m in.”

Jyn.

Shara nodded approvingly at Jyn. _She’s tough, she can do this._

 

Cassian looked at her and walked away. He felt like he was losing control, he needed to punch something, shoot someone. Instead, he went into the garage. He needed to look at the weapons Melshi had procured. They needed guns. And bullets. A lot of fucking bullets.

Jyn went to go after him but Kes gently grabbed her arm. “Let him go, honey. He needs to cool off for a bit.” She nodded, then turned towards Kay. “Want to take a look at Sparky?”

Kay rolled his eyes, shaking his head. He couldn’t believe she had named her toys. He followed her anyways. He couldn’t wait to look under the hood of that disc.

 

Jyn plugged Sparky into Cassian’s tablet, reviewing the codes and running sweeps on it to make sure everything was right. She had to give the government credit. They had modified the disc to absorb the exact amount of power needed to set off the right type of explosion. That was her problem before. She was putting too much power into it but could never figure out how to change the absorption levels.

 

Cassian was barely calming down. He had resorted to counting and organizing the bullets by gun model, then by brass number.

“Cass.”

He ignored her. He was polishing the bullets now.

She slipped up behind him, gently touching his shoulder. “Cass . . . talk to me.”

He closed his eyes. All these years, he had watched her, trying to protect her. He just wanted her to be safe. This mission was too dangerous. Krennic could be there. Would Jyn freeze if she saw him? Did anybody even think about that?

He felt her warm hand on his shoulder, sending tingles of sensation down his spine. It had been so long . . .the feeling of her touch . . .

He was so tired of not being with her.

_Fuck it. She could give him another black eye if she wanted too._

He turned swiftly, growling low in his throat, pulling her tight against him, his lips descending hard on hers, tongue demanding entrance. She tensed at first but then all the emotions she had towards him, anger, hurt, fear, passion . . . love rushed back to her, and she melted into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissed him furiously, opening herself to him. “Jyn,” he moaned, lifting her up on the work bench, as she wrapped her legs around him. “God, I’ve missed you.” He kissed her neck, breathing hard against her. She pulled him closer to her with her legs and she could feel him. His need for her. She arched her back, giving him access to her neck as he started unbuttoning her shirt.

 

Somebody cleared their throat.

It was Shara.

“Uh . . . hate to interrupt you guys but . . .  we need to get going.”

Cassian buried his face in Jyn's neck, hiding his embarrassment. “We’ll be right there,” he called out, his voice rough with emotion. 

Jyn slowly untangled herself from him, embarrassed. Damn him and his lips. She had been so mad at him for years and it takes one taste of him, one touch of his lips and she’s melted butter. She blew her bangs out of her face, frusturated.

She moved to pass him but he grabbed her arm. “Jyn wait. We need to talk.”

She looked at him, smiling faintly. “Let’s talk after Cass. We’ll have plenty of time then.”

 

(They don’t.)


	18. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mission in Los Angeles doesn't go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the cliffhanger in the last chapter. To make up for it, giving you two extra chapters earlier than expected today. Also, the story is slowly wrapping up. Maybe 24-25 chapters total. A lot happens in the next four. Be ready!

They flew to LA on a military transport plane landing at El Toro Air Force Base. The drive into LA took over three hours, barely giving them time to check into the safe house and to prepare. Draven had to utilize Saw and his Partisans for the active shooter threat at Dodger stadium. Cassian swallowed thickly when Draven told him. It was one thing, when they operated on foreign soil to use Saw. He cringed at the mass panic and hysteria that would happen. People would get hurt.

“You gave Saw . . . parameters, right?”

“Of course, I did,” Draven snapped. “No civilian deaths. Small injuries are acceptable.”

“Draven,” Cassian warned. “Reiterate that to him again. All we need is some guy trying to play hero and get hurt.”

“Or girl,” Shara piped up.

“Fine,” Draven muttered, as he got his phone out to call Saw. _Fuck, when did they all become so fucking soft._  

It was time. They had set up in a building a couple of blocks east of the Eadu building. They heard the call come over their comm units that were tuned to the police channel. " _Active Shooter - Chavez Ravine. All police units report. Chavez Ravine.”_

Kay looked at the video feed. He saw the off-duty police officers run outside, jumping into their cars and race off.

Shara, Kes, Cassian and Jyn were pretending to be tourists, walking around downtown LA taking pictures. “Kay, is everyone out of the building?” Cassian asked as he took a picture of the Staples Center.

Kay looked at the monitors. “It appears all security personnel have left. The weapon is on the top floor. My monitors detect eight humans. I’m presuming one of them is Galen.”

Cassian glanced at Kes. They could easily take them out between the two of them. They didn’t know they were coming. “Okay Kay, deactivate the fire alarms, We’ll slip in through the emergency exit and take the stairs.”

He looked up. Fuck. Twenty five flights of stairs. All those years of hiking with Jyn would be put to good use. Shara was covering the entrance of the building, _neutralizing_ anyone who got in her way.

They got to the top floor. Cassian and Kes breathing hard. Jyn looked like she could go up another twenty five flights.

“It’s because she’s so short. Less weight going up.” Kes muttered, wiping the sweat off his face.

Cassian asked Kay for an update.

Jyn had been quiet, deep in thought as they climbed up the stairs. She was going to see her dad. Her papa. All these years, he was so close to her. She was in the next city over, getting beat, while her Papa worked in this fancy building, arming an enemy of the United States with a weapon that could cause mass destruction. She was having trouble getting past it. She knew why he left. To protect her. Her dad left. Her mother left. Cassian left. All to keep her safe. She was tired of people making decisions for her.

Kes and Cassian quickly entered the floor, taking out four of the six agents. Melshi, from his sniper point, quickly eliminated the other two. Jyn wanted to search for her dad but her first priority was to plant the bomb. The floor had multiple levels, with windy staircases going to each level.

“Kay - which level is the weapon in? We can’t see shit and don’t have time to search them all.” 

Kay’s voice crackled back. “The satellite’s on the top level. It’s the only one that has access to the roof. That’s the only place it can be launched.”

Jyn and Cassian quickly darted up the stairs and found the room. They both stared at the satellite. For the destruction it could cause, Jyn expected it to be huge. But it was small, about the size of a house. _They must have built it here._

Jyn quickly attached the bomb to the bottom of the satellite and adjusted the settings for the explosion. There should be minimum damage to the building. Just enough to destroy it and anything else in this room.

Kay’s voice came over the comm unit. “Cass you need to get out - an alarm must have been triggered. You have five agents coming up each stairwell on the east and west”

_Shit._

_“_ Cass, I’ve got Galen. I’m coming up to you.”

“No,” he barked over the comm. “Get Galen out of here. Meet us on the skywalk. Jyn and I will be fine.”

“Melshi, how many can you take out from your position.”

“I can take out the ones on the east stairwell as soon as they enter. The element of surprise will be lost after the first two hits.”

That gave them eight people.

Cassian looked at Jyn, expecting to see fear. Instead he saw determination.

“We need to get to that skywalk. It’s the only place where we can activate the bomb without being too close to it.”

“Cass you got one minute before they enter the floor.” Kay warned him.

He positioned himself between two concrete beams. He could take out eight people. _Piece of cake._

Both doors to the stairs opened slowly.

Cassian leveled his breathing, barely making a sound. He waited to hear the whisper of Melshi’s bullets. Jyn crouched behind him. Three pings. He heard three bodies fall. Good, only seven now.

He looked at the west stairwell. Three agents came out, leaving two that must have remained. Fuck. Gunfights in stairwells never had a good outcome.

“Melshi - be ready. The rest of the agents on the east will come in when they hear me shoot.”

“Got it Andor.”

Cassian took aim. One. Two. Three. He got off three shots, taking down two agents but the third ducked and moved out the way. Fuck, he had a line on his location.

He heard Melshi’s gun. Two shots. Two more bodies hitting the floor.. The east stairwell was clear.

“Jyn, we need to make a run for it. Get ready.”

Cassian was looking for the agent that he missed. His eyes swept the floor until he saw a movement inside one of the offices. The walls were thin, systems furniture. His bullet would go right through it. He fired, hearing the body hit the floor with a thud.

“Now. Run!”

Jyn ran for the stairs just as the other Imperial agents came out from the west, firing their guns. She felt a dull thud but didn’t feel any pain. _What the hell was that?_

Cassian fired back but didn’t have time to see if he made contact. “Kay, can you lock these doors remotely?” 

“Done.” Good, he didn’t have to worry about them. _Let them burn with the weapon._  

They flew down the stairs to the skywalk where she saw Kes and her papa.

“Papa,” she ran to him. Galen Erso had aged over the years. He looked so frail. He wasn’t the tall, booming man that would push her on the swings or twirl her around when she was little.

He hugged her tightly to him. “Jyn, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” he cried into her hair. “There’s so much I have to tell you. So much you need to know.”

Jyn interrupted him. “Papa, I know. I know they poisoned mama and threatened me. I know that’s why you left.”

Galen closed his eyes at the mention of his wife. He hated leaving her with Krennic but they had both agreed they would do anything to keep Jyn safe. Even if it meant sacrificing themselves.

“Jyn, my stardust, you need to - -”

Cassian watched the reunion. He hated to interrupt the tender moment but they had a bomb to detonate..

“Jyn,” he said softly. “We need to -”

She sniffed, wiping her eyes.

“I know.” She opened up her backpack and took out her tablet, accessing Sparky. She entered in a few codes, checked the energy level of the device. She looked up at Cassian. “Ready?”

He nodded. “Light it up.”

She hit the button.

Nothing happened.

 

 


	19. Failures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian's worst fear is realized.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notice the major character death tag. Don't say I didn't warn you. Pretty angsty stuff going on in this chapter.

 

Jyn hit the buttton again. Silence.

Cassian and Kes watched anxiously as Jyn frantically typed in prompts, commands, codes. _Shit, shit, shit. What the hell happened?_ It wasn’t connecting to the device. Then she noticed it. A bullet was lodged in the tablet. That was what she felt when she had been running for the stairs.

Cassian’s throat tightened when he saw the bullet. He had yet to process how they were going to detonate the bomb. His mind was thinking of how close that bullet came to Jyn.

“Is there another way to detonate it?,” Kes asked anxiously.

Jyn looked up at them, flickering her eyes to her cousin, her father and finally her love. “Yes,” she whispered. “But . . . it has to be done . . . locally. You need to be within 100 feet.”

Kay, overhearing the conversation through the comm unit, did the math. “Cassian, the blast radius is well over 200 feet. The likilihood of surviving - -.”

“Kay, I know. We’ll . . . figure it out.”

“Cassian Andor you better not be thinking of playing a martyr.”

Cassian took the earwig out. He didn’t need Kay to hear this.

Shara Bey listened numbly to the conversation. _Kes would be such a dumbass and do it, she thought._

They all looked at each other. One of them was going to have to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Jyn took out a thin, black remote from her backpack, plugging it into her tablet. She uploaded the code into the remote, double checked the parameters, checked the battery. Satisfied it was ready, she put it in her pocket.

“Give it to me,” Cassian demanded.

She looked up at him, confused. Then understanding flickered across her face. “No Cassian, no. No! I can’t lose you. You can’t do this. There has to be another way. We’ll find another way. We can get another tablet, I can code a timer into it. I just need 15-20 minutes.”

Cassian wavered. _Just maybe they could . . ._

Melshi’s voice came over the comm unit. He was still on the roof of the adjoining building. “Cassian we have another problem. I see four white heavy duty SUVs with tinted windows coming this way. ETA is ten minutes max. Standard Imperial issue.”

“Jyn,” he said softly. “We don’t have time. The Empire is on their way and we need to get you and your dad out of here.”

Kes stomped over and plucked the remote right out of Jyn’s pocket. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law. All three of you are getting out of here now.”

_Kes no! Shara silently cried out._

“Kes, give me the goddamn remote. You're the only one I trust to get Jyn out of here. The Empire is on their way. You need to leave now. Give me the fucking remote." Cassian moved to grab it from him but then Kes put him in a chokehold. They scuffled, pushing each other and knocking both to the ground. The remote slipped out of Kes’s hand sliding across the floor. Both jumped after it, trying to knock each other out of the way.

Draven had been listening to the entire exchange but then heard the pushing and shoving. _Jesus Christ are they fighting? What the fuck kind of unit was he running? A fucking daycare?_

 _“_ ENOUGH!” Boomed a voice.

Galen Erso had the remote in his hand and was in the elevator, the door beeping trying to close.

Jyn looked up, her face going pale.

“None of you are dying tonight. I built it, I will destroy it. This is all my fault. I should’ve ended this years ago.”

Cassian calculated the distance from where they were standing. Galen could shut the door easily before they could reach him. He looked at Jyn. She just got her father back, she wasn’t going to lose him again.

“Papa, no!” Jyn screamed, running towards the elevator.

Jyn was closer to the elevator than Cassian or Kes. They both looked at each other then ran after her.

“Kay, shut down the elevators,” Cassian yelled into the comm.

Kay’s voice sounded oddly sad over the comm. “Cassian . . . you know I can’t do that.” _Kay hated to think it but out of all the people there, in that building, Galen Erso, with his genius mind that built weapons of mass destruction, would be an acceptable casualty._

Galen took his hand off the door, letting it close. “I love you my Stardust but it’s not your time. You have my mind baby girl but you have your mother’s heart. There’s one more weapon. It’s you.”  

The elevator shut in Jyn’s face just as she reached it. Leaving her alone . . . again.

Jyn slid against the elevator door, her hand planted against the stainless steel. Silent tears were streaming down her face.

“Jyn . . . we need to go,” Cassian put his hands under her arms, lifting her up. He wanted to get out of there before the bomb went - - -

A roar, the sound of thunder, like an earthquake rolled through the building. Cassian held his breath, silently praying that Jyn entered the calculations right.

She did. The thunder stopped. She was a fucking genius.

“The weapon’s been destroyed,” said Kay. He could see the sparks coming from the top of the building.

Melshi’s voice came over the earcoms. “Guys, you have two minutes to get out of the building.”

Cassian grabbed Jyn who had been sitting on the floor, a vacant look in her eyes. ‘Jyn, c’mon, I need you to get up. We need to move!”

Jyn shook her head, as if to clear the grief out. Her father’s last words ringing in her head. _“There’s another weapon, Jyn. You.”_

_What did he mean?_

The elevators weren’t working so they had to run down the stairs. They were nearly out of the building, safe, when a shot rang out of nowhere. Kes immediately crumpled to the ground.

“Kes, no!” Jyn cried out. Shara was coming from the next building and ran to him. “Kes!”

He had been shot. He was unconscious.

Shara hurriedly unbuttoned his shirt. _Please, she prayed, please tell me it didn’t pierce through the vest._ She felt around his back. No blood. _Dumbass must have hit his head._

“Melshi, where did that come from?”

“Not from up here, Cass. I’m looking.” Melshi was scanning the area with his rifle scope. Then he saw it. A man in a white suit, flanked by fifteen agents. “Cass, GET OUT OF THERE NOW!”

It was too late. Krennnic had arrived.

Cassian made a grab for his gun. Shara stood protectively over Kes, gun trained on Krennic.

“Drop it, both of you. Dameron’s fine. I know he has a thick head but I’m sure it won’t stop the next bullet I fire.” Three Imperial agents had their guns trained on Kes. His head, his mouth and his neck. All fatal shots.

“Shara, don’t put your weapon down. That’s an order,” Cassian shouted.  Their guns were all they had left. Krennic was here for Jyn. He could care less if he was killed. He wasn’t getting her. He’d kill Krennic then go down fighting.

“Melshi, how many can you take down?” Cassian whispered into his earlink.

Silence.

“Melshi, report.”

Static.

“Trying to reach your sniper over there.” Krennic motioned towards the building that Melshi had been on. He smiled. “He’s been taken care of.”

Shara gasped. _Melshi_ . His wife just had a baby boy, Ruescott Jr. _RJ, Melshi fondly called him._ _No, not Melshi._

 _“_ Cass,” Shara whispered. For all her toughness, for her dedication and loyalty to the Alliance, she was a woman in love. “I can’t lose him.”

She put her gun down.

“Send Jyn over here.” Krennic demanded.

“Over my dead body,” Cassian sneered.

“That can be arranged Agent Andor but I fear that Miss _Erso_ will prove to be quite difficult if I hurt you.” Three more soldiers trained their guns on Shara.

Jyn closed her eyes, furiously thinking. Her father’s last words. _Another weapon.. She was the weapon. War Mantle, Stardust. His mind, her mother’s heart._ Memories filtering through her mind. Her father showing her how to program, how to code. She fingered her locket. Her heart-shaped locket.

She figured it out. There was another weapon. And she was the only one that could defeat it.

‘Cass,” she said, sliding up to him. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

He glanced quickly towards her, trying to stay focused on Krennic. For being such a dick, he was patiently waiting. He had all the aces.

“Jyn, no. No. No. No!You’re not going with him. I won’t let you.” He was being irrational now. He knew they were outgunned, outmanned. But this man, he was an animal. He beat Jyn when she was little. He couldn’t let her go.

As if reading his mind, she hugged him. She whispered to him, her voice so low he could barely hear her. “There’s another weapon. I’m the only one . . . but you need to find me Cassi. Find me in the light.”

She kissed him on the lips, untangled his hand from hers and walked towards Krennic. Her worst nightmare.

Well she was about to become his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So every time I see a white SUV with tinted windows I totally think it looks like a storm trooper - hence the reference in this chapter. I know . . . So silly.
> 
> On a more serious note, sorry about Galen. He was never meant to have a big role in this fic. The story has always been about Jyn and Cass and their hurdles.


	20. Caught in Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian resorts to drastic measures to find Jyn.

Draven slammed the earpiece down. _What the fuck was going on? Why did they take Jyn?_ He always thought this chase, this assignment was about Galen Erso but all along, Krennic wanted Jyn. He needed to talk to Saw. He replayed Jyn’s last words to Cassian. _There’s another weapon._ Impossible. They destroyed it. All the intel Cassian had killed for over the years only alluded to this weapon.

“Kay, send a team to Melshi. No one in our unit though. They don’t need to see him. We need to inform . . . talk to his wife.” Draven grimaced, his heart clenched a bit. This is the part he hated. Those left behind. Draven was a cold-hearted asshole but he didn’t lack empathy for those around him.

“Already did, sir.” Kay was in robot mode. They had never lost a team member before. Melshi was the one that kept them together. Kes and Cassian would fight, constantly, like two old woman and then Melshi would get them to calm down, to compromise. He had been a loyal soldier and friend.

The pick up team commed Draven.

“Uh sir, we have three dead bodies here, but no sign of Melshi.”

Draven grinned. The sonofabitch survived. Probably holed up somewhere in the building. That motherfucker had more lives than a cat.

“Inform the others, I’m sure they could use the good news.” Draven didn’t want to think about Cassian right now. He spent the past five years protecting Jyn and now he had lost her.

 

Cassian was frantically pacing up and down the sidewalk, his heart racing. Jyn. They had her. The Empire. She looked so brave, so calm when they took her. He had lifted his gun up, one last time, aiming for Krennic’s head, but then he had grabbed Jyn and yanked her in front of him, blocking his shot. He lowered his gun. He let her go.

They had thrown her into the back of one of the SUVs. He cringed at how they mandhandled her. He immediately commed Kay, asking if he was able to track the vehicles. Kay, having to deal with everything and not having backup, didn’t have a chance to get the license plate numbers. _They were probably fake anyways._

He slid against the wall, defeated. For once in his life, he didn’t know what to do. The Empire had so many bases of operation, there was no way, they wouldn’t have enough time to track her down.

_Find me Cassi. Find me in the sun._

She wanted him to find her and he had no idea how. He let out a sob. _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Jyn. It seems my whole life, I’m saying sorry to you._

“Kay . . . what are her odds?”

He could hear the hesitation. For once in his life, Kay Tueso didn’t want to provide the odds.

“Kay goddamnit, tell me.”

“Cass . . . the chances of her . . .surviving . . . aren’t good. If they had taken one of us, a field agent, we can withstand _certain things._ Evenan analyst can survive for a few daysbut a civilian . . . maybe a couple of hours, a day at the most. Jyn . . . though. Given her upbringing, intelligence, ability to fight. She might have longer - two days.”

_He had forty eight hours to find her._

Shara slowly sat down next to him. They were waiting for an ambulance. Kes had hit his head pretty bad and still hadn’t woken up yet. Shara was caressing his head, a worried look on her voice.

“He’ll be fine, Shar. He’ll be okay.

Shara looked at him, tears brimming in her eyes. “I’m sorry Cass. I couldn’t let them kill him. I know Jyn is to you what Kes is to me. I’m sorry.”

Cassian wiped a lone tear that had leaked out of his eye. “They would have killed all of us. There was nothing we could do. We just need to find her.” He rubbed his head. He was so . . . tired. The past two days had  been crazy. How did they end up here? How did he lose Jyn? The one thing he had set out to protect, he had lost.

“Cass,” Shara murmured. He didn’t realize he had started crying.

“How do I tell Randi? Kerrick?”

Shara shook her head. “We don’t. We find her.”

Kes slowly came to right when the ambulance arrived. He looked at Shara, then at Cassian, his thoughts, his brain jumbled. _Someone was missing._

“Jyn . . . ?” he croaked out, slowly.

Shara looked down. Kes would never forgive her for giving up Jyn for him. It wasn’t an acceptable trade, he would say.

The utter fear on Cassian’s face was enough of an answer.

“Find her, Cass. Find my cousin. Whatever it takes.”

Cassian nodded. He knew what Kes meant. _When they were recruited to the Alliance, it was ingrained in them. Do whatever it takes to accomplish the mission. Even if meant sacrificing your morals, your goodness._

Kay’s voice came over the comm unit. “Melshi’s alive you guys. We found him. He’s a bloody mess, but he’s alive. He killed three Imperial agents all with a fucking bullet in his leg and his hip. The man’s a beast. A goddamn beast.”

They all breathed a sigh of relief. Now they just had to find Jyn.

 

Cassian passed out, exhausted, on the way to the safehouse. He dreamed while he slept. He dreamt of Jyn as a little girl, riding her bike, her green eyes daring him to follow her. They were riding their bikes, towards the lake, the sun shining down on her face, hitting the locket she always wore. He dreamt of her at sixteen, in her green bikini, smiling mischievously at him as she slipped her locket in his pocket, asking him to keep it safe. He had loved her even then. When he wasn’t supposed to. He had always loved her. He dreamt of her at eighteen, his lover, trusting him, giving herself to him, her body wrapped tight around him as they slowly made love for the first time.

I _picture you in the sun wondering what went wrong_  
_And falling down on your knees asking for sympathy_  
_And being caught in between all you wish for and all you seen_  
_And trying to find anything you can feel that you can believe in_  
_May God's love be with you_  
_Always_  
_May God's love be with you_

 

He jolted awake. Her locket. She wasn’t wearing it when they took her. She always had it on. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the necklace, gazing at it. She must have slipped it into his pants when she let go. He choked back another sob. _Why would she give this to him unless she thought she wouldn’t make it back. Something to remember her by?_

Cassian frowned, looking at the locket. He never realized it was so heavy. It wasn’t silver but it wasn’t white gold either. It was some type of metal, though. He tried to open it but it didn’t open. _Hmm . . . he always thought it was a locket._  He looked at it carefully. The locket itself wasn’t slim, it was a puffy-shaped heart. He pulled his knife from one of the pockets in his cargo pants and slid the knife along the side of the heart. It folded open revealing nothing but the metal inside. He shined his flashlight on it and then saw the glimmer in the metal, the metal stripes showing up faintly under the light. _It was a computer chip._

He was about to show it to Kay who had been watching and listening to the video feeds from the mission, analyzing. He was frowning.

“GODDAMNNIT!” Kay shouted, throwing his headphones against the van. “SHIT. FUCK. MOTHERFUCKER.”

Cassian raised his eyebrows. Kay wasn’t known for voicing his emotions. He kept everything neatly tucked away, as if nothing bothered him.

Kay turned to him. “I was trying to figure out how they got the jump on Melshi, how they _knew_ we were in the building. I thought I missed an alarm. That you guys tripped one I couldn’t find.”

Cassian understood what he was saying. There were no alarms. _They were set up._

 

He stormed into the safe house, slamming the door.

“We were set up!” He barked at Draven. “They knew we were coming. All our intel, Krennic never has that many guards. He came prepared. Somebody tipped them off.” 

Draven eyed him coolly. “Be careful Andor. You’re accusing someone on this team of treason.”

He glared at Draven, vibrating with anger.  “Who else knew? I _know_ it wasn't this team but who else knew? Who had access to the mission?”

Draven thrust a piece of paper at him. “A lot of people knew of the mission. From field agents to analysts to the fucking clerical staff that bring us coffee. Have Kay run the list and run everyone's credit scores and bank deposits.

Cassian turned sharply to find Kay. 

“Andor!”

Cassian stopped and turned around, waiting for Draven to say something.

“What are you prepared to do when you find the leak? Who will you become?”

The Alliance officially didn't condone torture. Unofficially, whatever you needed to do to get the fucking job done. 

Cassian’s mask, the one that had disappeared the minute Jyn reentered his life, came back. His face smoothed out, expressionless. "Whatever it takes, sir. I'm in this all the way.” He folded his hands behind his back and promptly left the room.

Draven smiled sadly. Andor was back.

 

Kay found the mole.

“It's an analyst,” he said with disdain. “Looks like he has gambling debts, was in big to a loan shark but then all of a sudden it's paid off.  I found two transmissions that confirm it. He didn't even have the decency to encode the message. He deserves to be tortured.”

Cassian went into the garage and grabbed a bucket, towels, some gardening tools. He went into the refrigerator and grabbed the meds - painkillers, adrenaline shots. He eyed the emergency kit hanging on the wall with a defibrillator, and grabbed it, adding it to his arsenal of tools. _Whatever it takes._

 

He gave Kay Jyn’s locket, showing him the data chip. “I need you to see what this is. Jyn gave it to me for a reason. Go through the video and comm feeds again. I need to know everything that was said between Jyn and Galen before he went in the elevator. Jyn said there’s another weapon. None of our intel points to that.”

He put on his jacket and grabbed the keys to one of the SUVs.

“Do you need back-up?" Kay asked, hesitantly. He had never gotten into _that_ side of operations but would do it if need be.

Cassian shook his head. He had to do this alone.

 

Kes and Shara showed up at the safe house about ten minutes after Cassian left.

Kay eyed Kes. The man was unbelievable. He had been shot, hit his head, and he looked like he could go another round without missing a beat.

“Where’s Cass?” Kes asked, immediately noticing he was gone. They needed to talk, get a plan going on how they would find Jyn. The minute he woke up in the hospital he demanded that he be released. The doctor wanted to keep him for overnight surveillance to which Kes had to be physically restrained from assaulting him. Draven finally had to make a phone call so they would let him go.

Kay updated the two on what they found out. The locket, the leak. Kes had never felt this much rage before. One of their own, someone sworn to protect the innocent had betrayed them. He would kill him with his bare hands.

Kes immediately ran to the garage. Cassian took all the supplies he would have taken. While Kes had never had to resort to torture in his job, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t knowledgeable in the tactics. He would do anything to find Jyn.

“Give me the address Kay.”

Kay reluctantly gave him the location.

 

Cassian was sitting down, in the mole’s kitchen at the table, his head in his bloody hands. He had tried extracting information from him but he refused to talk. He had waterboarded him till the man coughed his lungs out, beat him black and blue, and the man still denied knowing where they took Jyn. He was trained well. What did Kay say? That an analyst is trained to last 3-4 days under extreme torture?

 _I know I would apologize if I could see your eyes_  
_'Cause when you showed me myself I became someone else_  
_But I was caught in between all you wish for and all you need_  
_I picture you fast asleep_  
_A nightmare comes_  
_You can't keep awake_  
_May God's love be with you_  
_Always_  
_May God's love be with you_

Cassian closed his eyes, trying to get Jyn, her sweet face and smiling green eyes out of his mind.

_Find me in the light, Cassi._

He was going to have to go beyond extreme.

He was in the middle of his second waterboarding session when Kes and Shara walked in. He looked up, a flash of guilt crossing his face. _Who was he becoming?_

“Don’t try and stop me, Kes.” Cassian warned.

“I’m not. I came to help.”

Cassian looked up in surprise, noting the determined look on both of their faces. He couldn’t let them do this, bring them into his world. They were soldiers, fighters. Not a spy, a torturer, an assassin like him.

“I don’t need your help. Go away.”

Kes looked at him. “You’re not doing this alone, Cassian.”

Cassian stopped pouring water over the man’s face and murmured in his ear. “I’m getting tired of waiting. Where is Krennic? Where’s his base?”

“I’m not afraid to die. I’d be better off dead,” said the man.

Cassian went to grab his knife. He was done playing games. Before he could though, Kes grabbed the man by his shoulders and pushed him up against the wall, wrapping his hands against his neck, choking him. “Where is he?” He shouted, losing his patience. This man, this weak man was not going to be the cause of Jyn’s death.

Shara tried to intervene. “Kes, you’re going to kill him. He’s our only lead.”

“He wants to die, Shara.” He continued squeezing. He whispered into the man’s ear. “Not afraid of dying? You think there’s light at the end of the tunnel? You took away our light. Go to hell.”

“Kes, stop,” Cassian tried getting Kes off of him. Kes was like a rottweiler with a piece of meat. He wasn’t letting him go. The man was slowly turning blue.

Cassian shouted. “Kes, you’re going to kill him. We need him!”

It was too late. The man was dead.

Kes stepped away, letting him fall to the ground. He was too calm for just having killed a man. “Shara, get me the defibrillator. Cassian the adrenaline. Hurry!”

The both ran to get the requested supplies, their eyes wide.  

Kes quickly gave him the adrenaline shot, while Shara turned the power on the defib. He pressed the paddles against the man’s chest squeezing the handles. He came to right away, gasping, his eyes wide.

Kes sat back, smiling. “Now we can keep doing this all night or you can tell us where Krennic is now.”

 

Kay was anxiously waiting, standing by for instructions. Then he got the text. _We have a location._

Kay exhaled. He had news for them too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wish I could say the torture scene was my own original way of thinking, however stole a page from the TV show Alias when Jack Bristow strangled a man for information then brought him back to life with a defibrillator. Loved that show!
> 
> This whole chapter was about how far will Cassian go to save Jyn. Jyn knows Cassian has darkness surrounding him. She’s always been his light, his sun. Him constantly thinking of that is his war between who he has become and being the person Jyn knows he can be. Kes and Shara showing up is their way of telling Cassian to let them take on some of the darkness, the burden, the guilt he bears in trying to save her.
> 
> The song I listened to on repeat while writing this fic was In The Sun by Michael Stipe. Well I listened to a lot more but this one was my Cassian song. Hence why I used some of the lyrics in this chapter.
> 
> Take Me to Church by Hozier is a good one for this chapter too . . .


	21. Stardust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team discovers another weapon. Plans are made to rescue Jyn.

_Jyn_

Once they threw Jyn into the back of the SUV, they drove for an hour and then stopped at an airfield and flew to San Francisco. Krennic didn’t bother blindfolding her which worried her. That meant they didn’t plan on her leaving. They planned on killing her.

She hoped Cassian understood her message and found her locket. She couldn’t say much at the end. She had figured out they had been set up. There’s no way the Empire could have known about Melshi. Plus Kay had disabled all the alarms, how did Krennic get there so fast? Someone in the Alliance had ratted them out.

She discovered in college that her dad had put a chip in her locket. It used to have a picture of her mother, but Jyn took it out. She couldn’t . . . she still had a hard time forgiving her mother for staying with Krennic. She discovered the chip when she took the picture out. It was the first code they had developed together. It was the one she still used to encrypt her tech now.

Jyn had figured out what the weapon was. She was the only one that could destroy it. But only with that chip. That’s why she gave it to Cassian. She couldn’t run the risk of the Empire searching her and finding it. _It was all they had left._

 

Cassian, Shara and Kay walked back into the house looking weary. Cassian thought for sure Kes had killed him. He had no idea of the plan they had hatched out. They didn’t have time to tell him plus they wanted to make the mole think that Kes was the bad cop, Cassian the good one. It had worked. They got the coordinates and sent them to Kay.

Kay looked up from his monitor when they walked in. “They’re in San Francisco. In the Scarif building in downtown. All of the Empire's data, intelligence is housed in that building.

Cassian hung his head. Another large building, another major city. _Shit._

“There’s more.”

Cassian looked up.

“I listened to the feed between Jyn and her dad. He told her there was a second weapon. That it was her.”

Cassian shook his head. “I don’t understand. How can Jyn be a weapon?”

Draven finally spoke. He had talked to Saw who had shed some insight on Jyn. “It’s why Krennic wanted her, searched for her all these years. Galen was a genius but Jyn . . . was exceptional.”

“Is exceptional,” Cassian corrected, frowning when Draven used the past tense.

“She was coding, programming computers at the age of four. She could look at Galen’s programs and right away notice weaknesses, holes in his theories. They hid her intelligence from Krennic but then he got ahold of her test scores in elementary school. That’s when the obsession started. So he used Galen as a tool, to build and develop for him. But his ultimate goal was Jyn. Lyra thwarted him when she contacted Saw and he set it up for the Dameron’s to take in Jyn.”

Cassian pinched the bridge of his nose. “So the second weapon, that’s Jyn?”

Kay shook his head. “No. The second weapon is the program, the code, that runs the satellite. Stardust."

They looked at him blankly.

Kay sighed loudly. Nobody could be as smart as him . . . or Jyn, he thought belatedly.

“Imagine the satellite as a gun. A gun is useless without bullets. Well unless you use it to hit people on the head like Dameron does from time to time."

“Kay.” Cassian warned.

He went back to his explanation.

“Back to the gun. You can’t use a gun without the bullets. The satellite is like the gun but the code, the programming of the satellite. Those are the bullets. That’s what kills. The Empire can easily build another satellite and load it with the program. Jyn knows how to kill that code and that’s why Krennic wanted her.”

Kay’s next words to Cassian chilled him to the bone.

“To make sure it could never be destroyed.”

 

“Kay, what about the locket. What was on the chip?” Cassian still had questions. There had to be a reason why Jyn gave him the locket. He refused to believe it was a token, something to remember her by.

Kay frowned. “I tried to decrypt it but the logic, the sequence of the code. I’ve been at it for hours and I can’t figure it out. I tried a brute attack from my personal cell and it fried it. The Alliance owes me a new phone,” he complained.

Cassian looked at Kay’s phone thoughtfully. _That was it. The chip. Jyn knew how to execute the chip to kill the satellite codes. That’s why she gave it to him. She couldn’t risk the Empire finding it on her and destroying it. It was her only leverage. The only way she could stay alive._

He explained his theory to Kay. Looking at the chip from a different angle, he ran a few tests on it. “It could work but you need something to magnify it.” Kay said. “The coding behind the satellite is tens of millions of ones and zeros. This little chip couldn’t kill it right away, it would take days. You need something instantaneous. A sudden burst, like a pulse.”

He had an idea. “Her Spark.” He refused to call it Jyn’s nickname.

Kay nodded. “That would work. Jyn showed me how to program it, I could do it.”

Cassian went to find Draven to give him an update and to see if he had any more of the discs. Draven took one out of his pocket and handed it to him. _Does the man just walk around with bombs in his pocket like it’s nothing?_

Draven nodded thoughtfully. "We can hit them hard. Use the code not just on the satellite program but on all their data. We can end it. Once and for all. 

“We need to get to San Francisco. Now. It won’t be long before Krennic realizes we got to the mole.”

“I already have a plane ready. Let’s roll.”

 

Kes and Shara had already loaded up with weapons. They left as soon as Kay was done programming the Spark and had the chip in place. Thinking of their failure at Eadu and losing Galen, he told Kay to have a backup tablet just in case. They pored over the plans of the Scarif Building. It wouldn’t be as easy to infiltrate as last time. Krennic would have Jyn heavily guarded. He didn’t know they were coming though. They had the element of surprise.

They arrived at the safe house shortly before midnight. Cassian was strapping on his vest and loading up with weapons when Kes walked into the room.

“Cass.”

Cassian looked up at him. They both had so much to lose. “Do you think she’s still - - ?”

He stared at Kes in the eye. “She is.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I would know. I would feel it. She’s still alive Kes. She has to be.”

 

Jyn didn’t know how much more she could take. The guards had used her as a punching bag. Knocking her to the ground, teasing her, calling her little. She was dying to take them out. But her fighting skills _and that chip_ was all that she had left.

Then Krennic walked into the office they had locked her up in.

“Why don’t you just kill me?” Jyn asked him, defiantly. “You don’t need me. You have your stupid program.” She thought Krennic wanted to get rid of her because she could destroy the code. Why hadn’t he killed her yet?

Krennic grinned at her. “What your father built was good. But we want something greater, bigger. And we need you to take his place.”

“Hell. No.”

Krennic smiled at her. “Jyn, darling. You will do this for us.”

She shook her head. “You can’t blackmail me. Threaten me like you did my parents. They’re gone. I have nothing now.”

Krennic cocked his head at her. “Are you sure about that? You probably loved your parents the least.” He tossed his phone to her. There was a video feed on it. A live one. _Randi cooking in the kitchen. Kerrick in his patrol car._ Then the photos. _Cassian jogging. Kes at the gym_. She paled. She needed to ignore the photos. This was the mistake everyone had made. Trying to protect each other. She would protect them but she refused to build a weapon to do it. She would find another way.

Krennic handed her laptop. “Don’t try anything cute. The laptop is programmed so you can’t send a transmission outside this building. You’re ten times smarter than your dad. Work on the code. You have two hours.” Then to show her that he was in charge, he hit her, knocking her across the room.

Jyn closed her eyes. _C’mon Cass, where are you?_

She opened up the laptop and started typing. She could beat the shit out of him but she could put up a better fight with the laptop.

 

They were outside the building. Kay had hacked into the security feed and looped the cameras to make it look like no one was outside. Since they were down Melshi, Draven had come along with them. The old man was just dying for action. Cassian had assigned Kes sniper duty in which he had put up a fight. He wanted to be on the ground, with them. But Kes was a better shot than Draven and they would need that accuracy tonight.

“Kay, you have an eye on her location?” Cassian barked.

Kay swept over the video feeds. He finally found her. She was in an office on the top floor of the building. There were huge amounts of power coming from that floor. Most likely all the Empires servers, their programs were on that floor as well.

 

Jyn was working on the laptop, accessing the video feeds when she saw a flicker. Then the video went back to the picture. After typing in a few entries, she found him. The intruder. _Kay._ Krennic was a dumbass. He hadn’t counted on the Alliance hacking into their system. They must be close by. Even though Jyn couldn’t get a message out, she could get a message in.

An image popped up on Kay’s computer. A library. He opened it up. Jyn had found him.

 

_U ok?_

_Y. on top floor._

_We know. guards?_

_y. 10._

_Krennic?_

_Left._ She looked at her watch. It was an hour into her two hour window.

_B back hr._

She texted him. She needed the chip.

_Chip?_

_y. with sparky. How much time do you need?_

_Ten._

Jyn grinned. Kay was almost as smart as she was.

 

Kay commed Cassian.

“Cass, I’m talking to Jyn. She’s safe. She knows you guys are on the way. There are ten guards. Krennic will be there in an hour. Jyn will need at least ten minutes to load the chip and destroy the program.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. _Thank God she was still alive._

Kes smiled from his location. They were going to get her out. Safe and sound.

“Kes. Focus on the top floor. We’re going in hard. We need to level the guards before they can call for backup.”

Kes eyed them through his scope. He would kill anyone who posed a threat.

 

They burst into the room, guns blazing. Cassian immediately took down two agents, Kes three. Shara got one but the second fired back at her and she ducked into an office, firing blindly at him. Draven, always handy with a knife, snuck up on the one she missed and slashed his throat. Shara and Draven ran to the servers, Shara loading Jyn’s chip and Draven working to download all intelligence before they destroyed it. _Always the spy._

Kes took down two that were trying to call for backup. _Where did the last two go?_

Cassian looked wildly around and saw an office with a light peering out from it. _Jyn._ He ran to the office and one of the guards had Jyn. A gun to her head. The other one was pointing a gun at him.

“Kes, please tell me you have one of these assholes in your line of sight,” he murmured quietly into the comm.

“No site, Cass.”

_Shit._

“Drop the gun or I blow her brains out.”

Cassian smiled at him. He was taking a risk, an educated guess. Krennic hadn’t killed Jyn yet for a reason. He needed her.

He lowered his gun casually.

“You won’t kill her.”

Jyn looked at him. He eyed her up and down. She was banged up. A bruise on her jaw. Her chin was scraped. Her arms were bleeding. He noticed she was favoring her left ankle. _He was going to kill them all._ He could see the fire in her eyes. She was itching to fight.

“You’re not allowed to kill her.”

Cassian lowered his gun to the ground slowly, then quickly grabbed his knife from his boot and threw it at the agent that had his gun trained on him. The agent holding Jyn loosened his hold on her which she took advantage of. She threw her elbow into his stomach, whirled around, smashed her fist into his face and then kicked him in the nuts.

Cassian winced. Her fighting resembled Shara’s. Mean.

The agent Cassian stabbed attempted to lift his gun to shoot him but Jyn kicked him in the face, teeth and blood flying out of his mouth before he could pull the trigger. Cassian quickly picked up the gun and killed both of them, before they could do any more harm.

Jyn went running into this arms, kissing him frantically. “Cass. You came! You found me.”

He hugged her tightly. “I’ll always find you Jyn.”

 

Shara had loaded the chip into the server but needed Jyn to do the rest. Jyn immediately went to work, furiously typing away.

“Shara, Draven go grab the car. We’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes. Keep an eye out for any more agents. Kes, you still keep watch on the roof. You’re our last line of defense.”

Cassian stood guard next to Jyn on high alert.

She finally stepped back from the monitors. “It’s ready.” Her hand hovered over the keyboard. “You’re sure?” He asked. They had to destroy it. It would never end. They would always come after her.

“Positive.”

“Then kill it.”

Jyn hit the keyboard and all the monitors went blank, turning it the blue screen of death.

“Kay, can you test it?” Jyn asked.

Kay typed in a few commands. He sat back, relieved.

“It’s over. The program’s dead.”

Cassian breathed a sigh of relief. Jyn turned to him, smiling. Kes started packing up his rifle, picking up his shells.

 

Everyone made the deadly mistake of forgetting about Krennic for a moment.

 

They had almost made it to the elevator when a shot rang out.

“STOP!”

Krennic stood at the end of the room, having come up a private elevator. He had a gun in his hand, trained on Cassian.

Kes frantically started unpacking his rifle. _Shit, shit, shit._

_Shara started running back to the building. No. Draven ran to get the car._

“I’m feeling a sense of deja vu Agent Andor. Weren’t we just here?” Krennic smiled evilly.  “Send Jyn over. NOW. Or you get a bullet in the head.”

Cassian pulled Jyn tighter to him. She was looking at the gun on Cassian. _No. No. No. We were almost home. Safe._

Cassian shook his head. “No. It’s over Krennic. You’ve lost. Your weapon is destroyed. Your systems are dead. The Alliance has every single piece of intelligence on the Empire now.”

Krennic sneered. “The only thing I’ve lost is time.” He fired the gun again, the bullet nearly hitting Cassian on the foot. He flinched but refused to move. “Jyn, honey, come over here now or I put a bullet in his brain.”

She looked up at Cassian. She could do this. She could sacrifice herself for him

Cass murmured into the com. “Kes.”

He was hurriedly putting on the scope. _Shit_. He needed more time. _Fuck fuck fuck._

“Give me ten seconds.”

He had the scope on, adjusted the dial on it. He looked through it, trying to find Krennic.

Krennic raised his gun again.

Kes lined up his shot.

Jyn jumped.

They both pulled the trigger at the same time.

 

 


	22. Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team tries to save one of their own.

Kes looked through the scope. Krennic was down. The bastard was finally dead.

He swung the scope back through the room to make sure Jyn and Cass were okay. That’s when he saw it. Blood. Too much blood. _No. No. No._ He didn’t bother putting his rifle away. He sprinted out of the building.

Krennic’s shot hit Jyn. Cassian saw her go down. Then he realized it. She didn’t have a vest on.

He ran, sliding on his knees to her.

“Kay, we need a medic NOW!!

She lay on the ground, limp. Blood pouring out of her chest. _No, no, no. Jyn._

He ripped off his shirt and applied pressure to the wound. He put his hand under her back and didn’t feel a hole. _Shit the bullet was still in there._

Her eyes were open. Looking at Cassian. She tried to talk.

He cupped her face. His heart was racing.

She was losing so much blood, he couldn't stop it. “Shh . . . shh honey. Don’t talk. Save your energy. Just stay with me.”

Shara ran into the room, gasping at the sight of Jyn. She had a medic kit on her and immediately started tending to her.

Jyn’s eyes started to close, unconsciousness calling to her. Shara gently shook her. "Honey, we need you to stay awake. Don’t close your eyes.”

She wrapped roll after roll of gauze on the wound.

“Kay where’s the goddamn ambulance?” Cassian frantically shouted into the comm. 

“One minute Cassian. I’ve enabled the elevators so they can get up there as fast as possible.”

Jyn tried to raise her arm up to touch Cassian. He grabbed her hand and held it. “Don’t move sweetie. We got you, okay? The ambulance is almost here. Just stay with me.”

She was trying to talk. She needed to tell him something. _She knew she was dying._ “Cass,” she whispered, coughing. “Cass, I . . .” _I love you, she wanted to say._ But she was too weak, too close to death. Her eyes fluttered closed and blood streamed out of her mouth. Cassian was openly crying now, remembering his parents, hiding under the bed, watching the blood trickle out of their mouths as they lay dead.  _This couldn't happen to him again. Not again. Not her. She was the good one. The best out of all of them. She was his light, his sun._

The rest was a blur. The medics arrived and rushed her to the closest hospital. She flatlined twice on the ride there. Cassian watched numbly as they tried to save her life.

He was waiting outside her room while the doctors performed surgery on her. Kes and Shara were there with him, holding each other. Draven was in the waiting room. The look on the doctor’s face told Cassian enough. They didn’t think she would make it. She had lost too much blood. The bullet had punctured a lung. 

He heard the long beep. She had flatlined. The doctors and nurses amped up the defibrillator again, pressing the paddles to her chest. Still . . . flatline.

Kes winced when he saw them use it again. _This was karma, he thought, his body numb. This was payback for them using it on the mole._

They tried to stabilize her but her heart was too weak. The defib wasn’t working.

Cassian saw the look of defeat on the doctor, the nurses faces. _Don’t call it, don’t call it, he prayed._

The doctor looked at her watch. _No. Cassian thought._ _No! Not her._ She was the innocent in all this. _Not her!_

He ran in there, screaming, begging for the doctor to try again. The doctor shook her head sadly.

Kes had to pull Cassian out of the room. Cassian slammed his fist into the wall, Kes was openly crying. Shara slid down against the wall, tears welling up in her eyes.

She was gone. Jyn was dead. 

  
The doctor looked at them. Her normally stoic nature affected by these two grown men grieving.

She would try one more time. She believed in science and medicine. But tonight she would believe in God.

She pushed the paddles on her chest and pressed. Her flatline continued.

She put the paddles down. God wasn’t listening tonight.

 

Then a miracle. A beep. A small one. And then another one after that.

The doctor smiled. Maybe God was listening after all.

Hospital security made Cassian, Kes and Shara sit in the hospital waiting room after Cassian had punched the wall and Kes nearly punched one of the doctors. Kay had arrived with a jug of coffee from a local coffee shop, his face full of disdain when he saw them drinking the hospital coffee.

The doctor finally came out.

She looked at Cassian. “I don’t think we’ve formally met. I’m Dr. Harter Kalonia.”

Cassian shook her hand. “Sorry about earlier,” he mumbled.

“She’s in critical condition. The bullet hit her lung which caused all the blood loss. We had to inflate her lung, then repair it. She needed surgery to get the bullet out which was lodged very close to her heart. She’s on a ventilator right now to help her breathe.” She paused, letting them absorb the information.

“The next few hours will be critical. If she survives the next few hours without incidences, then her chances go up. But we have to take it hour by hour, day by day.”

“Can I see her?” Cassian asked. He needed to see her, to make sure for himself. His heart was still beating rapidly. She had died. Her heart didn’t have a beat.  He’ll never forget the sound of the final flatline.

“Normally I wouldn’t allow it. But I think for the safety of everyone in this hospital, you two can,” she motioned to Kes. “No more than two minutes each. She needs her rest and doesn’t need you two bugging her.”

She opened the security door and Cassian ran to her room. His heart stopped when he saw her. She looked so small, so frail in the big hospital bed. She had a black eye, her chin was bruised. He noticed the scrapes on her arms, her ankle was in a splint. On top of all that, she had so many tubes attached to her. The ventilator hissing quietly in the room. He had to tamp down the rage. He wanted to kill every single person that worked for the Empire. But he needed to be here, with her. He folded himself in the chair next to her bed and gently touched her hand and just stared at the gentle rise and fall of her chest. He slowly exhaled. She was finally safe. She just needed to pull through.

Kes poked his head in a few minutes later. Cassian moved to leave but Kes shook his head. “Stay,” he whispered, lightly touching his arm. Cassian nodded and they both were content in just watching her.

Dr. Kalonia came in and kicked them out. “She needs to rest,” she whispered. “You can come back in the morning. Go home and get rest.”

They walked to the waiting room and were surprised to see Randi and Kerrick. “Kes,” Randi cried out, running to her son and hugging him. Shara had called them. They deserved to know that Jyn was hurt. This wasn’t something they could hide from them.

Draven sneaked out of the room. He wasn’t good with family reunions. He had paperwork to fill out and a whole lot of intelligence to filter through.

Cassian stood back hesitantly. He hadn’t seen Randi or Kerrick since he left six years ago. Randi let go of Kes and then stood back, looking at Cassian. He looked so weary. He still looked like the forlorn little boy that showed up her doorstep, wanting to play with Kes so many years ago. So sad, so scared of getting close to people. She opened her arms. Cassian went into them, choking back a sob. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault that she’s hurt. She tried to protect me.” Kerrick had come up and pulled both of them into a hug. “It’s okay, son. It’s okay. We’ve got you now. You’re not alone.”

Kes looked at Shara who was tearing up at the reunion. He had come so close to losing Jyn. He didn’t want to waste any more time. He grabbed Shara’s hand and got down on his knees. “Marry me,” he told her. Shara laughed at him.

“You asshole, you didn’t even ask. You just demanded.”

Kes ducked his head down. “Sorry Shar. _Will_ you marry me?”

“Yes, you dumbass. Of course I’ll marry you.”

Cass looked at his best friend. Kes was getting married. The tension in the room was slowly fading away to something more powerful. _Hope._

They waited anxiously throughout the day for an update. Dr. Kalonia finally came back out nearly eight hours later.

“There’s no change in her condition, which is a good sign. She’s not out of the woods yet but she’s strong, she’s healthy. We just have to wait and see.” She forced everyone to go home, shower and rest. She pointedly looked at Cassian and Shara as she said this. They both still had Jyn’s blood on their clothes. Kerrick had paled when he noticed. Kes shook his head at him. _Don’t ask._

Cassian refused to leave unless someone stayed behind with Jyn. _Just in case she woke up_ . Randi and Kerrick both agreed to stay and gave them the key to their hotel room so they could shower and rest. Cass saw the look Shara and Kes exchanged and decided to give them privacy and went back to the safehouse. He took a shower and watched as Jyn’s blood that had been caked to his skin rinse down the drain. He rested his head against the cool shower tiles, finally letting his emotions go. _She had tried to save him. She pushed him out of the way with her small hands and jumped in front of the bullet. Why? He wasn’t worth saving. All the blood, all the killing, all the hurt he inflicted on others. The hurt he inflicted on her. She didn’t deserve this._

She should have just let him die. Now, she was fighting for her life because he hadn’t fought hard enough for hers.

He walked quietly through the house, gathering his stuff. He walked past Kay’s desk and saw Jyn’s necklace. Kay had to take apart the locket for the chip so only one half of the heart remained, along with the charm he gave her so many years ago. He grabbed it and put it in his pocket and headed back to the hospital. She would want it when she woke up.

 


	23. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn's family anxiously waits for her to wake up. Draven delivers news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for all the angst and drama in the last couple of chapters. Thanks for sticking through this with me. I love everyone's comments and reviews - thank you!!!

Cassian arrived at the hospital just as the doctor finished her rounds.

She smiled faintly at Cassian, noting the hopeful look on his face. Randi and Kerrick were sitting down, hands clasped around each other. Kes and Shara were on their way back.

“She’s doing better. We had to give her a blood transfusion to make up for all the blood she lost. We were able to take her off the ventilator and she’s breathing on her own. We still want to keep her under observation for another twenty four hours before we move her into intensive care. That girl is a fighter. Her injury . . .” she shook her head, trying to rephrase her words, not wanting to scare her family. Dr. Karter had never seen somebody survive a gunshot wound of that nature. “Her injury was very serious. It took a lot out of her to fight it. She just needs rest.”

“When do you think she’ll wake up?” Randi asked nervously. Jyn was such a force to be reckoned with. Seeing her in that hospital bed, fragile, weak, shook her to her core. _Her baby girl._ Randi felt like she had failed Galen and Lyra. They entrusted their daughter to her and here she was, fighting for her life.  

“Soon but she’ll be in and out of consciousness. She may not be fully alert for a couple more days. I know it’s pointless to tell you this, but you should go home and rest. We can call you with updates.”

The response from the group was pretty much what she expected. Nobody was leaving.

Dr. Kalonia sighed. “If that’s the case, one of you can stay with her in her room and she can have visitors. Sometimes physical contact or talking helps. But if she doesn’t progress, then I’m kicking you all out.”

She walked away to check on her other patients. She had a feeling this patient, Jyn and her family, were going to test her patience.

She smiled.

 

Randi told Cassian that he should stay with Jyn. He tried to protest, saying Randi or Kerrick should be with her, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She could tell Cassian was barely hanging on by a thread and that being by Jyn’s side would help heal him as much as it would help her.

They all visited with her briefly before Cassian finally went in. The hospital staff had set up a chair that reclined next to her bed with a pillow and a thin blanket. He just stood in the doorway staring at her, listening to the faint beep of the machines that were helping to keep her alive. He sat in the chair and gently threaded his fingers through hers, his hands warming her still cold ones.

He whispered to her softly. _“Jyn. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. Please, please, come back to me. You’re everything to me, mi amor. Te amo mucho. Lo siento. Lo siento mucho.”_

He bent his head down, crying softly. So lost was he in his guilt that he didn’t feel the slight tug of her hand on his.

Kes stood in the doorway watching his best friend fall apart. He turned quickly before Cassian could see him.

“How’s he doing?” Shara asked, when he went back to the waiting room.

Kes shook his head, his throat tight. “Not good. I think he’s blaming himself for everything.” Kes choked back a sob. Shara hugged him tightly. “I . . .  Shar . . . I don’t know what I would have done. If we had lost her. She’s still not out of the woods yet. She’s my baby sister. I fucked up. I should never have put down that rifle.”

Shara tried to console him. “Kes . . .it wasn’t any of our faults. We did our best. Nobody saw Krennic coming. We thought we had more time to get out. I should never have left them alone. I should have stayed.”

“You guys all need to stop moping around and get over it. The only person at fault is that sick sonofabitch Orson Krennic and he’s burning in the incinerator at the county morgue.”

Draven.

Kes sighed wearily. “What are you doing here, sir? Thought we were making you uncomfortable.”

“I wanted to talk to Andor. Where is he?”

Kes immediately became protective. Draven didn't need to be dragging Cassian back into Alliance business. Not now. “He’s busy. Why?”

“Kay and I have been combing through all the intel we took off of the drives. I . . .wanted to let him know that the Empire’s done. Finished. We’ve already launched a coordinated infiltration with MI6, Mossad, SVR and several other international intelligence agencies to attack all bases of operations.” It was the first time all the spooks had come together and agreed on something. The Empire needed to be destroyed.

Kes and Shara hugged each other. Finally. All their hard work had paid off.

Draven was beaming. He could retire on this shit. There was just one more person that needed to be taken care of but he wasn’t involving Andor in it. No he had someone better to help him.

Cassian walked into the waiting room to find Draven, Kes and Shara talking excitedly.

“What’s going on?” He asked tiredly, sitting down on the couch. His body was aching. He had fallen asleep, with his head bent over Jyn’s lap. He was surprised to see Draven. He thought for sure the old man would be stuck in a dark office, eating up all the data they took from the Scarif building.  

Draven told him the news. The Empire was done. Finished. Destroyed. It was over.

He suddenly stood up. These last six years, he had one mission only. Protect Jyn. Destroy the Empire. He was done. He didn’t have to hide from her anymore. _He could go home._

  
It had been four days since she was shot and Jyn still hadn't woken up yet. Even though Dr. Kalonia reassured him, Cassian was getting nervous. She looked so pale and her hands felt so cold. He just wanted her to wake up so he could see her green eyes, hear her voice, kiss her. It was late, one evening, when he tried talking to her, whispering to her to wake up. The other nights, he had stayed quiet, softly praying, holding her hand being enough for him.

He picked up her hand, brushing his lips against her palm.   
"Please wake up Jyn," he begged. "I'm so sorry I got you into this mess. Please honey wake up. I'm so sorry. I want to start over, I miss you so much. _I love you," he_ whispered _._ He begged, he pleaded, he prayed to God, begging him to wake her up _._ He fell asleep, crying,  his head on her bed, clutching her hands to his chest. 

"Cass," a faint whisper. 

He shot up. Her eyes were slowly opening. "Cass," she whispered again. 

_She was awake! Thank you God, she was awake._

"Shh . . . honey. I'm right here. Let me get the doctor."

He hit the hospital pager until the nurses and Dr. Kalonia came rushing in. 

He waited patiently outside her room while the nurses and Dr. Kalonia checked her vitals. She was fussing at all the poking and prodding. He closed his eyes smiling. _That was good. She was feisty._

They left her room with the nurse muttering to him on her way out. “She’s all yours. Good luck.”

He went inside and saw that her eyes were closed.  _Probably counting to ten before she blew up at someone, he thought._

“Hi.” Was all he could manage out.

Her eyes flew open.

“Cass,” she said, her voice scratchy. The look of relief in her green eyes was evident. “Your safe. You’re here. I didn’t know. I just heard the gunshot and I fell . . .” Her machines started beeping erratically, she was starting to panic.

He moved to the side of her bed. “Shhh . . . shh honey. Calm down. I’m fine. You’re the one that got hit. Not me.”

Jyn closed her eyes. She was trying to remember what happened. Her whole body hurt. She remembered Krennic pointing the gun at Cassian and blood, there was so much blood. Her breath hitched. It hurt to breathe. It had been her blood. She had been shot.

Cassian was hovering over her, a concerned look on his face. “Jyn, honey. Are you okay? Do you remember what happened?” He saw her breath falter, a gasp of pain.

She opened her eyes slowly, exhaling. The doctor had told her to be careful but all the noise, the nurses, she hadn’t been paying attention. She just wanted them to leave her alone.

“I . . . yeah, it’s coming back. Is . . . nobody else was hurt right? Kes, Shara, Kay? Are they okay?

Cassian nodded his head. “They’re fine. We’re all fine. You’re the only one that gave us a scare. You should never have pushed me, jumped in front of me.” His eyes started watering again, thinking how close they came to losing her.

She weakly touched his hand. “I couldn’t  . . . I couldn’t let him hurt you. He had already taken so much from me. I couldn’t let him take you too.”

He lifted her hand up slowly, burying his face into her palm. “I thought I lost you. There was so much blood and then the hospital, the doctor. Jyn.” He kissed her palm. His voice was shaky. “You don’t even know how close it was.”

Jyn spied the hole in the wall and his bruised knuckles. _It must have been bad._  She nodded to it. “Was that from you?”

He nodded his head into her hand, numb. She smoothed the tears on his cheek, caressing his head. “It’s okay, Cassi. I’m right here. I’ll be fine.” She kneaded her fingers on his head, her motions becoming slower and slower until she finally fell back asleep.

Kes came in, excited, having heard that Jyn woke up and saw that they were both asleep, Jyn’s hand resting in his hair. Cassian looked exhausted, even in sleep. _Shit when's the last time he ate? Fully rested?_

He patted him lightly in the shoulder. “Cass . . . Wake up.”

He slowly lifted his head, looking blearily at Kes.

“Sorry Kes, I should've grabbed you and Shara but she didn't stay awake that long.”

“It's okay, Cass,” he said, looking at Jyn fondly. They would have plenty of time to sit and talk to her. He had faith. “Why don't you get something to eat?”

Cassian started to protest but Kes cut him off. “You’re no good to her weak. I'll stay with her.”

He reluctantly left her room, looking at her sleeping. He could, would do that all day, all night. Just to make sure she was okay.

 

Kes looked at his baby cousin, choking back a sob. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the burning image of seeing her through his rifle scope, flat on the ground, bleeding out. _They had almost lost her._ He shook his head, exhaling, wiping his eyes. He was so glad she had woken up, even for just a little bit. They needed that. _Hope_.

Jyn's eyes fluttered open, taking in Kes.

"Finally stopped faking getting shot?," she joked with him weakly.

Kes stifled a laugh. "At least I don't jump in front of a bullet to get attention."

Jyn abruptly laughed then winced when she felt a tug on her chest muscles. "Ugh . . . don't make me laugh."

He grabbed her hand, looking at her. "You gave us all a scare, kiddo."

She looked at Kes, her eyes watering. "I would do it again if it meant saving _him."_

Kes smiled sadly. "Out of all of us, he's the one that needs it the most." 

 

Cassian went to the cafeteria and was surprised to see Kay there, looking like he was mentally preparing himself to eat the food he had to serve himself.  He was surprised to see him. He thought for sure Kay would be sifting through all the data Draven stole from the Scarif building. Speaking of Draven, he hadn’t seen him in a couple of days either. Cassian frowned, wondering what the super spy was up to now. _Probably nothing good._

“Kay.”

He looked up. “Cassian. How’s Jyn?”

He smiled thinking of her, so glad she had finally woken up. “Good. Getting better every day.”

Kay looked thoughtful.

“What’s going on, Kay? Why are you here? I thought you’d be back at ops, going through all the data.”

Kay pulled out a chair motioning for Cassian to sit down. His face was serious.

“I . . . needed to talk to you.”

Cassian stiffened. This didn’t look good.

Kay continued. “Part of the agreement in the collaborative op with the other agencies was that we share the intelligence.”

Cassian raised his eyebrows. Normally the Alliance didn’t like to share. They must have wanted to hit the Empire hard.

“I get it,” he said, nodding his head in agreement.

“Cass . . . before I sent it to the other agencies, I destroyed all records of Jyn Erso.  Everything the Empire had on her, her family, I took it out. She’s . . .  exceptional. But nobody needs to know that. Just us.”

Cassian squeezed his eyes shut. He had been worried. Jyn would’ve eventually become a target by someone else. Kay doing this took her off the radar. Nobody knew Jyn Erso existed. She wouldn’t have to look over her shoulder. She would be safe from harm.

He grabbed Kay’s shoulder and patted it. “Thanks Kay. I don’t know how I can repay you.”

Kay looked down at his food, sneering at it. “You can start by taking me to eat someplace where I don’t have to get my bloody food from a cafeteria line.”

Cassian laughed. It was his first laugh in nearly two weeks. "C'mon buddy," he said, tapping his arm, "Let's go eat."


	24. Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn is not happy about the healing process. Draven makes his last move against the Empire.

_One month later . . ._

Jyn was frustrated. She wanted to go home. She was tired of being in the hospital. She wanted to move on with her life. She could still see the fear in Cassian’s eyes every time he walked into her room, as if expecting her to not be there or to have fallen sick. She was about to beat the crap out of Kes for hovering over her too much. Shara was the only one that gave her room to breathe.

She had overheard the doctors and nurses say it was a miracle she survived. She finally cornered Dr. Kalonia one day and told her to give her the details. She gave her the medical file. Flatlined three times in the ambulance, twice on the hospital bed. Her heart officially did not beat for two minutes. She lost over three liters of blood, enough loss that could kill two people. If it wasn’t for Cassian begging the doctor, they would have called her time of death.

No wonder Cassian fretted over her. Why Kes refused to return back to work. This just made Jyn more determined to get healthy, to make her body strong again so she could leave.  They all needed to look forward. She was so tired of letting the past hurt them all.

The nurse had just told her that her lungs weren’t breathing at the capacity they should be at so she would be in the hospital longer. She threw the damn breathing apparatus across the hospital room, wiping angry tears from her eyes. To top it off she used her left arm to throw it and now her chest hurt.

Cassian walked in right when she threw it and noticed her pinched face, holding her chest.

He rushed to her bed. “Jyn! What’s going on? Are you okay?” He noticed the tear stained face.

“I want to go home Cass. I’m tired of being here. I’m tired of being cooped up.” She was breathing rapidly. _She was tired of being a victim._ “I want to go outside, get fresh air.” They wouldn’t let her go outside, worried she would catch a cold, an infection.

Cassian was recognizing the signs. She was starting to panic.

“Jyn. Jyn. Honey, breathe. Relax. You’ll get out soon.”

She was still breathing hard, her eyes not focused.

He slipped in her bed carefully, settling down behind her, his legs cradling hers, her back flat against his chest. He ran his hands down her shoulders to her arms. His chin resting on her shoulder.

“Shhhh . . . honey. You have to relax. Just breathe.”

He grabbed her hands and wrapped his fingers through hers, slowly stretching her arms out and then in.

“Inhale.” She breathed in deeply, ignoring the pinches of her chest muscles.

He stretched her arms out.

“Exhale.”

She breathed out.

He did the exercises with her until her breathing evened out and she was settled peacefully in his lap, sleeping.

She woke up in his arms, her face close to his chin. She wanted to touch him but it hurt to lift her arms up. So instead she raised her lips to his face, lightly mouthing at his chin, his stubble tickling her lips. He sighed contentedly, half asleep, enjoying the sensations. She grew bolder, moving towards his mouth. He was awake now, his body still, letting her explore. Worried that if he moved, she would stop. He turned his face slightly, giving her access to his mouth. She gently pressed her lips to his, brushing her tongue over his teeth, pressing her body closer to him. He ran his hands up her side, gently toying with the hem of her sleep shirt. She moaned into him, trying to get as close as possible.

Her heart monitor went off, beeping erratically.

Jyn pulled away from him slowly, growling. “I hate this place,” she muttered.  

Cassian chuckled lightly. “Soon, querida. Soon, you’ll be home.”

 

She was in the hospital for another month. The hospital wanted to keep her longer but said she could leave as long as she was under supervised care. She was still weak and couldn’t lift heavy items but as long as she stayed with someone to make sure she didn’t overdo it, they would release her.

She moved back in with Kerrick and Randi. Randi moved her office to Jyn’s old room upstairs so Jyn wouldn’t have to overexert herself going up and down the stairs. Cassian moved back to his old apartment, wanting to be close by. Everyone noticed he never left her side at the hospital. He hadn’t officially given Draven his notice but Kes had a feeling he was never going back to ops.

Jyn was the only one that didn’t know what was going on with him. He was there every day with her in the hospital  helping her with physical therapy, sneaking in food for her, playing board games with her so she wouldn’t go stir crazy. He had even brought in a laptop for her to play with, but hospital security took it away when she tried to hack into her patient record to get an early release.

But he had yet to touch her beyond the hand holding. Except for that one time when she got him when he fell asleep on her bed. It was as if he was afraid of hurting her.

She blew her bangs away for her face, irritated. She wanted to be at her normal pace. Running, swimming, hiking, doing normal things. She hated relying on people. She wanted her independence back. She wanted to grab Cassian by his hair and kiss him hard and make love to him and put everything behind them.

 

“I’m going for a walk,” she announced, one morning, after breakfast, wearing her exercise clothes. Kerrick and Randi exchanged looks. They knew she wouldn’t take no for an answer and the doctor said she could do light exercise.

“Okay, honey. Just be careful. No hiking. Just walk around here. Call us if you get tired and need a pick up.”

Jyn nodded. She was glad they didn’t argue with her.

She walked outside and breathed, inhaling the smell of pine and snow. _Oh she missed being outside._ She walked slowly up and down the street. She got tired of the repetitiveness and made her way down to the lake. It was all downhill so it shouldn’t be that hard. She would call Kerrick to pick her up.

Cassian arrived at her house, missing her by about ten minutes. He knocked gently then slowly opened the door, announcing himself.

Randi poked her head out from the kitchen. “Oh, hi Cassian. Sorry, we thought you were Jyn.”

Cassian went on alert. _She wasn’t there._ “She’s not here?”

Randi chewed her lip. Cassian and Kes hovered constantly over her, she briefly wondered if she should have called one of them to take her walking. “She wanted to go for a walk. She promised to stay close by so we thought it would be fine.”

Cassian scowled. Jyn shouldn’t be alone. Even though the Empire was done, finished, he still worried. He had no reason to, Draven had told him there was nothing to worry about but fuck if he didn’t still panic about her.

He smoothed the fear out of his face, not wanting to worry Randi.

“It’s okay. I’ll see if I can catch up to her.”

 

Jyn was sitting on a bench, staring at the lake when she heard footsteps behind her.

“This isn’t staying close to home.”

Cassian.

She glanced up at him. “I’m tired of being on restriction. I needed to get out.”

He sat down next to her. He had tried to hold back the worry, the panic when he couldn’t find her at first. He had driven around the neighbourhood, noticed all the hiking trails were closed, then finally, found her at the lake. _He was going to put a tracking app on her phone whether she liked it or not._

“I know, honey,” he sighed, wrapping his arm around her. “We just worry about you. It’s never going to go away.”

“Cass, everything is over. I’m safe, I made it. We don’t have to worry about anything anymore.”

 

There was one more person they had to worry about.

 

Davits Draven was sitting at a coffee shop in La Jolla, going on his third cup of coffee. His contact was an hour late. He threw a few dollars on the table and was about to leave when Saw Gerrera, slid into the booth across from him.

“I’ve been waiting over an hour,” Draven snipped.

Saw rolled his eyes. “Relax. I’m here now. You ready?”

“I’m always ready.”

They made their way across the street to a building that overlooked the ocean. It was owned by a well known philanthropist, a man who donated so much money to so many charities that universities named buildings after him, cities named parks after him. He even had his name on a highway interchange for all the work he did in the community. Saw and Draven were about to execute him. This man was the shadow behind the Empire. Hiding in plain sight as a philanthropist, a business man but secretly, he was a terrorist, an enemy of the United States, a war criminal.

They entered the building quickly, keeping their heads down, avoiding the cameras. They entered the man’s office through his private elevator, Kay having giving them the access codes.

 

“Gentlemen. I’ve been expecting you,” greeted Wilhuff Tarkin, looking out the glass window at the waves crashing below.

Draven had his gun leveled at him.

Tarkin slowly turned around, taking in the two men that had been chasing him, a shadow, for the last seventeen years.

“Surely you wouldn’t shoot an unarmed ma---”

He didn’t even have a chance to finish his sentence. Saw shot him, point blank. The ferocity of the bullet tore through Tarkin's body, shredding the window behind him. Tarkin fell to his death below, his body hitting the rocks before the waves crashed over him, taking his body out to sea.

Draven turned on Saw. “We were supposed to make it look like an accident. A suicide. Not blow his body to kingdom come.”

Saw shrugged his shoulders. _He could care less. Let the government figure this one out_. He shook Draven’s hand. “I hope we _don’t_ meet again, Davits.” Then he walked out the room.

Draven got out his phone. “Melshi, I need a clean up crew. Come to San Diego now.”

Now it was finally over.

 

Cassian and Kes both got a text from Draven. Or rather an emoji. _Now he was using emojis? Who the hell was this man?_ It was a skull with cross bones. And the American flag. And a smiley face. They both smiled. The last chess piece, the king, had been knocked down. _It was over._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to NewLeeland for making me want to bring Tarkin out to play with . . . albeit very briefly. ;-)


	25. Apologies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian and Jyn talk about their relationship.

Cassian went over to Kerrick and Randi’s every day to help Jyn. They went on long walks, slowly building up her stamina and her strength. He helped her with her physical therapy, taking her to the gym to strengthen her chest and arm muscles.

She still had no idea what they were. He hadn’t mentioned future plans, if he was going back to the Alliance, nor had he initiated anything physical either. She was irritable, moody and tired of this in between stage with them.

They were walking on a path along the lake when he touched her arm, gently, stopping her. He could tell something was bothering her. She was more sullen than usual.

"Jyn, what’s wrong?” He asked her, his voice low.

She turned her head away from him, squeezing her eyes, a tear leaking out.

She stayed quiet. She was so afraid to ask, so afraid of the answer.

“Jyn, honey, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

She whirled on him.

“Cass . . . are . . .do you plan on staying? Because if you’re not, then you need to leave now. I can’t. I can’t get attached to you and then you leave me . . .again. I won’t put myself through that again.”

Cassian stepped back from her, shocked at the ferocity of her words. He thought . . . he could’ve sworn she knew how he felt, that him moving back here was all for her. _You dumbass. You never told her. Every time you’ve whispered words of love to her, she’s been asleep or unconscious._

He hung his head down.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

 

Jyn's lip trembled, trying to bite back the tears. Her heart was breaking. Again. He was going back . . . to the Alliance. He was leaving. He was leaving  _her._

 

He looked at her, his eyes clear. “I’m sorry for the way I left you six years ago, Jyn. For the way I did it. I . . . was so scared that night. I couldn’t find you and when I did. That night. The way I was with you. I just . . .I never should have left you.”

He pulled her to him, embracing her tightly. “I will never leave you again Jyn. I promise.”

Jyn exhaled. She had been holding in her breath. _She had thought . . ._

She looked up at him, at his warm brown eyes full of apologies. When she woke up the morning after he left, her heart had shattered into a million pieces. She never thought she could forgive him.

But Jyn was always a forgiving person.

“I forgive you,” she whispered.

That was all Cassian Andor needed. Her forgiveness.

He pulled her into a tight embrace, burying his face into her neck. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I left” he repeated, over and over again, his lips brushing the apology along her neck, to her chin. He softly pressed his lips to hers, waiting for her to respond. She kissed him back with intensity, trying to drink him in, to make up for the years they lost.

She pulled away, her green eyes lighting up at him. “It’s okay Cassi. You’re here with me now. That’s all that matters.”

  
It took her six months before she finally healed. Physically.

Mentally she was having a hard time. Her nightmares had started back up again. She dreamt of those last moments with her father, of the explosion but in her dream, she miscalculated the bomb and Cassian, Shara and Kes all died while she watched helplessly. Some nights she dreamed of Krennic beating her and then shooting Cassian, and blood pouring out of him. Those were the worst. The ones in which she couldn’t save him.

“Honey, are you sure you’re going to be okay by yourself?” Randi asked her, nervous. Jyn was a grown woman but she was still afraid to leave her by herself. Kerrick and her were visiting a friend in Reno for the weekend.

“I’ll be fine,” Jyn assured her. “Besides, Cass is coming over. He can keep any eye out on me.”

Randi lovingly cupped her face, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Okay honey. Be safe.”

Cassian came over bringing movies and food. Jyn sat on the couch watching a movie while he made dinner. 

He noticed she fell asleep. _She’s been overdoing it, he thought, noticing the dark circles under her eyes. She needs to rest more._ He made a vow to take care of her, to help her get rest, heal. He had been taking it slow between them, not wanting to go fast. It was as if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, that she would see beyond him for what he really was. _A spy, an assassin, a torturer_. He loved her so much. He ached for her. He wanted to kiss her, hold her tight, bury himself in her. 

Her whimpering drew him out of his melancholy thoughts. She started tossing and turning. She didn’t call out, she mostly just whispered. “No . . . No. Not him. I have to save him. Not Cass.”

Cassian froze. _Fuck, how long had she been having nightmares and not telling anyone._

He quickly sat down next to her, rubbing her shoulder. “Jyn . . . Jyn . . . honey, wake up, you’re having a bad dream.”

Her eyes shot open, frantic, and she bolted up. “He killed you. I tried to save you but then he hit me. I couldn’t save you. He killed you. He killed everyone I loved.”

His stomach clenched. This must be why she was so tired, the bags under her eyes. She had been holding it all in. Not telling anyone, not wanting to worry her family. He held her tight. “It’s okay honey. I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m right here, with you.” He said soothingly, rubbing his hands up and down her back..

She buried her face in his neck, clutching onto his shirt, shaking. He held her tighter, trying to comfort her, kissing the lone tear that fell on her cheek. She turned her face, her lips seeking his, needing assurance that he was safe, not hurt and that it was just a bad dream, her small hands slipping under his shirt, feeling his warmth.

“Jyn . . .,” he whispered, as her lips frantically ran over his face, his neck, her body pressing close to his. He slowly pulled away, dipping his forehead to hers. “Jyn.”

She didn't want to let go. “Cass,” she asked him her voice small, “don't you want this? Me?”

“Of course I want you,” he growled out, tightening his hold on her. “I want you on this couch, in your bed, on the kitchen table.” He slowed down taking a breath. “I just . . . I'm scared of hurting you. I'm too . . . I'm not good enough.”

She looked at him, a puzzled expression on her face. She was fine physically. Why would he think he wasn't good enough? Then she noticed the tortured look in his eyes and how he avoided her gaze. Their last time together, when he left her, he had been . . . intense . . . so caught up in his fear of losing her, of who he would have to become, he had buried himself in her, trying to keep the shadows at bay. _He was worried what she would think of him._

“Cass,” she murmured, cupping his face. “Look at me.”

He turned to her.

She held his gaze. “I know. I know about . . . what you . . . Kes . . .had to do . . . to find me.”

He looked down, avoiding her eyes. This sweet, kind woman would never want him now.

“I would have killed him myself had it been you.”

His eyes widened. Jyn's face was serious, her eyes hard, determined.

_She understood, he thought. She knew who he was, who he had been and she still wanted him._

“Jyn,” he sobbed out, crushing his lips to hers, the salt of their tears mingling together. She kissed him back hungrily. “Cassian, I need you. Don’t . . .don’t push me away. Let me be there for you.”

She reached for his shirt, trying to lift it up. He pulled her hands back, picking her up gently. He kept his lips on hers as he carried her to the bedroom, gently laying her down, her dark hair spread out over the pillow. He slowly undressed her, his lips kissing every part of her body. He paused when he saw the scar from her bullet wound, flashes of memory hitting him.

“Cass,” Jyn murmured, knowing what he saw, feeling the tension radiate from his body. “It’s just a scar. I’m right here. It’s okay.” He breathed deeply and lightly kissed the scar, sending shots of pleasure through her body. She slid her hands under his shirt, sliding it off his body, admiring his lean chest, the formed muscles. He braced his arms over her, hovering, while she undid his belt, sliding his pants off of him, running her hands down his back, over his hips to the back of his legs, squeezing him gently.

“I want you so much,” he ground out, as he lowered his body down to hers. She wrapped her legs around him, moving her hips up, urging him and he pushed himself in her, his eyes watching her carefully as she took him in. They moved slowly, their gazes locked on each other, both in tune with their bodies as he pushed and pushed her harder until she finally gasped out, clenching around him, calling out his name. He came not too long after, burying his face in her neck, as she soothingly caressed his body.

He watched her as she slowly fell asleep, curled up in his arms, ready to comfort her if she had another nightmare.

For the first time since she had been shot, Jyn didn’t have a nightmare sleeping peacefully in his arms.

 

She awoke to the smell of breakfast. Her stomach growling since she had missed dinner the night before. She put on his t-shirt and wandered into the kitchen to see Cassian making pancakes, bacon and eggs. He handed her a cup of coffee and she inhaled the smell, fully awake now.

“Hi,” he said, grinning at her, as he flipped a pancake.

“Good morning,” she said, sidling up to him and giving him a peck on the cheek.

He blushed, not used to the affection.

He prepared the plates of food and took them to the table.

They ate quietly, both exchanging shy smiles at each other. Finally he spoke up. “I thought we could go for a hike today.”

“Really? A hike?” Jyn asked, excited. She hadn’t gone on a hike since before she got hurt. All her exercises to heal had been on flat ground, Cassian worried that she would overexert herself.

“I thought you didn’t think I was ready yet, that I needed to wait.”

He smiled at her mischievously. “I think you’re fine physically, if last night was any indicator.”

Jyn had the good grace to look down and blush.

Cassian cleaned the kitchen while Jyn zipped around the house getting their backpacks ready. They walked to the trailhead and he waited for her to pick the path.

Of course she picked the one they had started on when she was sixteen years old.

It took them longer to get to the top of the vista, Jyn having not hiked in over six months. They finally reached the outcropping of rocks and she laid a blanket down, settling down on the hard surface. He folded himself down next to her, pulling her close. He remembered those early years with her, being so afraid to touch her, to show his feelings. It felt so good, so right, to finally be at this point, this place, in time with her. He eyed her as she stared out at the lake, the sun shining down on her, her eyes a glittering green. She was so beautiful. She was always there for him, in the sun, his light. She turned to look at him, smiling, questioning his serious gaze.

“I love you,” he said, his eyes wide, his heart open. He had never loved anyone as much as he loved her.

Jyn breathed out. All these years, all the heartache, the pain, the loss, the passion, the need. That was all she wanted to hear. That he loved her.

She kissed him, her lips whispering the words back to him. “I love you too, Cassi. I’ve always loved you.”


	26. Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue

Jyn was getting ready for the wedding, unconsciously frowning at her scar as she got dressed in front of the mirror. The past year had been a whirlwind. Her recovery, her work, her relationship with Cassian. 

Jyn moved back to her apartment and went back to work at the university once she was fully healed. Saw had mysteriously disappeared and the board of trustees asked her to take his place as the head of the IT division. She agreed to do it on an interim basis. She missed getting her hands dirty, working with technology to improve lives. Her father . . . he was supposed to use it for good and she needed to fix that. Fix his mistakes. She wanted to get back to doing  _ good _ and making a difference. 

Kes and Shara left the Alliance and started their own security consulting firm, with a small gift from the trust account Lyra had left Jyn. She was happy that the money was being used to create something, build something. 

She thought of Cassian, the smile never leaving her face. _Her love_. Just like when she was little, he had been her rock, her support since her injury. Once he found out about her nightmares, he refused to leave her at night. Holding her when she would cry out. Comforting her when she couldn’t fall asleep. Making love to her when she needed it all to go away. 

She had become his rock too. He still had his anxiety, his demons that he kept at bay. Everything he did for the Alliance, for Jyn, he was having trouble dealing with. Jyn was there for him though, all the way, never once judging him for his actions. Things got better for him when one of Kerrick’s deputies retired and Kerrick immediately offered the slot to Cassian. That was all he ever wanted to do - help people. Plus Jyn enjoyed seeing him in uniform.  _ She also enjoyed seeing him out of it too.  _

Davits Draven had tried to retire but apparently the Alliance Council said he didn’t have enough years towards his pension and insisted he stay on. Which, Jyn found odd, considering the man had been serving the government since he was eighteen. 

Saw Gerrera was never heard from again. All though Jyn would get a flash drive every now and then, asking for her help to decrypt it. 

 

There was a knock at her door.  _ Kes.  _

He looked at her, dressed up, her hair done, make-up done, eyes shining. 

“You ready, shortcake?” He said with his typical smirk.

Jyn queried him back, “Are you ready?”

He smiled. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

 

Kes watched the bride walk down the aisle. Her curly hair outlining her beautiful face. He was marrying the love of his life today, Shara Bey. 

Jyn was sitting next to Cassian, her eyes watering as they said their vows. Cassian was gently caressing her left hand, his thumb moving over her ringless finger. 

_ It wouldn’t be empty for much longer, he thought, patting the velvet box in his pocket.  _

He looked at her and grinned, his smile so open, so bright. Her heart bloomed at how far he had come, how far they both had come. “I love you,” he whispered to her. Jyn smiled, nodding her head, tightening her hold on his hand.

_ “I’ve loved you forever,” she thought.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the end of the road. I hope everyone enjoyed this. I definitely didn't set out to make this as angsty as it was but like I said at the beginning, I'm a happy ending gal. I wish I could have added more fluff but yeah . . . it just wouldn't have fit in. 
> 
> I debated on the ending though. A part of me wanted to have Cassian go back to the Alliance and Jyn join him but I don't feel that would have been a happy ending, that they would have always had to deal with danger and my poor babies needed a break. Hence the happy, normal, civilian lives. 
> 
> I got a kick out of writing Draven. I think he was my fav. Shara too - she was pretty badass. Kes was another fun one. Oh okay, so I had fun writing everyone. 
> 
> Thanks for all the kind comments and the kudos. Now I can start getting back to my day job and catching up on all the rebel captain fics I missed while writing this. ;-)


End file.
